[scott00]

Doesn't make intuitive sense to me why you'd need a whole new airplane for this. Can you not rig something up to let one of these blades ride on top of an existing plane like the space shuttle transporter? Or would Sergey Brin's giant dirigible work? Or two helicopters flying in formation? Or just make the blades come in two pieces assembled on site?

Just seems very hard to believe a project as massive as a whole new airplane is the best solution to this problem.

[sonofhans]

For one thing, a 747 is only 250 feet long. So a 300-foot blade on top would trail significantly.

For another, the shuttle piggyback worked partly because of the shuttle’s aerodynamic profile. It’s designed to go straight forward into the wind. This means the 747 still handled well. A windmill blade, though, would present a very different cross section to the oncoming air, and seriously screw up the host’s aerodynamics.

So you could mask it and put fairings on it, and by the time you’ve done that 500 times you’ll wish you’d just built a special-purpose airplane to begin with.

[MadnessASAP]

The Boeing Dreamlifter is literally that. There's also the Airbus BelugaXL. Taking big cargo aircraft and putting bigger cargo fairings on it has been going on since the 60s.

None are capable of a 300' length, but they're also not far off. I'm not sure what Radias gameplan here is but I'm extremely doubtful they'll be able to spin up a bespoke airframe for this one market before Boeing/Airbus have built a FeverDreamlifter or BelugaXXL off an existing airframe.

Especially with A380s to be had rather on the cheap these days.

[sonofhans]

So I’m no expert, but I’m not sure I agree. For one thing, a Dreamlifter is 235 feet long. They’d have to add nearly 100 feet to that before it fit a 300-foot blade. I think that makes it a completely different airplane.

Also I wonder about density — turbine blades are really light, and this Radias seems not to have a huge wingspan. Perhaps it’s optimized specifically for long, low-density cargo. That’s not the market that Boeing or Airbus are going for with their craft.

[MadnessASAP]

I would love to deliver a TED talk on the costs and issues with developing new airframes vs adapting existing ones to new roles.

However I'll leave you with an analogy. If you were in the business of delivering mattresses, would you rather have a GMC cube van that is perhaps not aerodynamically optimal and has a weight capacity that exceeds your requirements but has parts available around the world and every mechanic and driver has seen before. Or would you rather develop a custom mattress delivery vehicle that no one knows what to do with, doesn't fit in normal parking lots and can only be maintained and driven by your own specially trained team of mattress delivery vehicle specialists. How many mattresses do you have to deliver in a year before that option makes sense? What happens when GMC sees this giant mattress delivery market and pulls the box off one of their larger pickups and attaches a mattress carrying unit?

[sio8ohPi]

External transport of wings has been done:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/wreq34/antonov_an...

[superb_dev]

That is much smaller and straighter compared to modern turbine blades

[jmvoodoo]

I actually know someone at radia and asked them this exact question last year. Apparently the blades are also extremely fragile and couldn't withstand the forces of being mounted on an aircraft. The problem with lighter than air is that the wind farms tend to be in places with, well, a lot of wind. Not ideal places for lighter than air vehicles.

Helicopters just aren't efficient enough, would have the same issues with wind (especially when carrying a giant airfoil), and would damage the blade if they came out even a bit out of formation.

You're right it doesn't make intuitive sense, but the people doing this are pretty damn smart and actually did think of these things!

[MadnessASAP]

I really don't think they did, the problems that need to be solved to retrofit existing airframes to carry a lightweight 300' load pale in comparison to what's needed to design a whole new jumbo sized airframe. Especially since once they've designed an airframe that's only good for carrying large low density loads to rough fields, then that will be the only thing it's good for.

A large wide body airliner with a big-ass shell and gravel kit retrofitted is still a large widebody airliner. Just one that happens to have a decent amount of headroom.

[perilunar]

> The problem with lighter than air is that the wind farms tend to be in places with, well, a lot of wind.

On the other hand, an airship doubles as a crane, so there would be no need to truck it from the airfield and then crane it into place. You can deliver it directly to the rotor hub.

Countering the wind with computer-controlled thrusters would seem to be the way to go. Also, there is a large tower already there that you could use as a stabilising mast.

[HPsquared]

It all depends on how big the "wind turbine blade shipping" problem is - and how big it'll be in future.