Radia's WindRunner: the 109-metre plane built to land on dirt

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Radia’s WindRunner: the 109-metre plane built to land on dirt

Transportation Get your news fromINTERESTING ENGINEERING

Colorado start-up Radia is building WindRunner, a 109-metre freighter that would be the longest aircraft ever built and hold 6,800 cubic metres of cargo, about ten times the volume of a Boeing 777.

This plane is apparently longer than a football field and is built to land on dirt.

This is WindRunner, from a Colorado start-up called Radia, and on paper it would be the largest aircraft ever built.

Length, 109 metres. That is about 25 metres longer than the Antonov An-225, the giant that held the record until it was destroyed in 2022.

But the number that matters is inside. The cargo bay holds 6,800 cubic metres, roughly ten times the volume of a Boeing 777.

And here is why it exists. Onshore wind turbine blades have crossed 100 metres, and roads, bridges and tunnels simply cannot take them any more.

Radia says WindRunner will swallow a blade up to 105 metres long, then put it down on a semi-prepared strip just 1,800 metres long, right beside the wind farm.

So this thing is designed around size, not weight. Maximum payload is 72.6 tonnes, less than an An-124 can lift, with a range of only 2,000 kilometres and a lazy cruise of Mach 0.6.

The engineering is deliberately boring. Four off-the-shelf turbofans, an aluminium fuselage, a mostly composite wing. The CEO’s pitch is that nothing about it is new except the scale.

For now it is still a design. Radia is targeting first certification flights around 2030, and is already pitching the jet for rockets, satellites and military cargo.

24 days ago

Transportation

Radia's WindRunner: the 109-metre plane built to land on dirt

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