World's biggest aeroplane 'Skytanic' dwarfs Boeing 747 in size longer than football pitch
The world's largest plane, cheekily nicknamed 'Skytanic', has shocked aircraft enthusiasts with its gigantic size, with its vast measurements rivalling the length of a football pitch. The vessel will take flight within the next five years.
Energy firm Radia is spearheading an audacious project to construct a mammoth aircraft named WindRunner. The plane, measuring 108m in length, would outsize a Boeing 747 by carrying twelve times its load and being 38m longer.
The impressive aircraft has a unique mission - transporting enormous wind turbine blades to remote locations. Given their size, these blades are among the world's longest objects, potentially limiting the cargo jet to carry just one at a time. Some of these gigantic blades weigh in at approximately 26,000kg, reports the Mirror.
Paul Hanna, Radia's vice-president of marketing, spoke about the complex transportation issues associated with wind turbine blades, explaining: "It takes a year and a half to plan a move of these things down a highway.
"You've got road bridges to get underneath, traffic signs that need to come down, homes that are near the off-ramp that may have to be moved."
Radia's goal is to tackle significant logistical challenges involved in moving these hefty offshore blades, currently a complicated process due to their immense size, and could potentially facilitate the expansion of wind farms.
In the near future, wind turbine blades are predicted to extend from 70 metres to 100 metres in length, enabling them to capture more wind while rotating in a slower, less disruptive manner.
Already, some companies have had to construct special roads to transport blades of current lengths, as they pose considerable difficulties when navigating through tunnels and under bridges.
Radia has identified a novel solution to the logistical challenges of transporting turbine blades by taking to the skies. Over the last ten years, they've been developing the WindRunner, an immense aircraft boasting a cargo space twelve times that of a Boeing 747. The firm aims to have the aircraft airborne before the decade's end.
Once operational, it will claim the title of the largest plane ever flown, surpassing the Ukrainian Mriya jet, which met its demise at the start of the Russian invasion in 2022.
Rocket scientist Mark Lundstrom is instrumental in shaping the design. He declared that the "only viable solution" for moving large wind turbine blades is to construct a colossal aircraft, thus leading to the creation of the WindRunner.
Despite its staggering size, with a height of 24m and a wingspan of 79m, the aircraft can transport just one 105m blade or a maximum of three 80m blades at once.
Hanna has unveiled high hopes for Radia to initiate airborne blade transportation by 2030, telling Aerospace magazine about his visionary target.
He said: "We have the opportunity to take a dramatic and lasting amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere and we're giving the aerospace industry the chance to participate in reducing the cost of energy by as much as 30 per cent."
Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Lundstrom underlined the primary impetus for their initiative.
"The necessity to fight climate change is something that's a big motivating factor," he went on.
"It's very unique to be able to have an aerospace solution to climate change, as opposed to contributing to the problem. For an aerospace engineer or company to contribute their skills to fighting climate change, instead of just optimising passenger seat miles or making a defence product, is a unique opportunity for the aerospace industry to get exposure into the energy world and also be able to take many percentage points of CO2 out of the world."
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