The US military is exploring uses for a proposed aircraft that will be the largest plane ever built 鈥� even though the flyer is primarily designed to carry giant wind turbine blades.
The WindRunner, currently under development by the company Radia in Colorado, is planned to have an 80-metre wingspan and a 108-metre length. That鈥檚 roughly the dimensions of a FIFA-regulation football field, giving the aircraft about 12 times more cargo volume than a Boeing 747 airliner and a maximum payload of 72,575 kilograms.
The WindRunner was designed at this scale so it could deliver 100-metre-long turbine blades to remote wind farms in the continental US. But its massive cargo capacity could have other uses, says , vice president of business development for defence at Radia.
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Such a massive plane could complement the US Air Force鈥檚 ageing fleet of transport aircraft, including the C-17 Globemaster III and the C-5 Galaxy, which Bibb commanded when he previously served as an Air Force major general. 鈥淭he [WindRunner] can carry cargo too large for a C-17 or C-5,鈥� says Bibb.
The US Department of Defense signed an with Radia to study how the WindRunner could carry military cargo such as vehicles, oversized equipment and even smaller planes, such as F-16 fighter jets and V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The military is not yet providing any funding for the WindRunner鈥檚 development.
One reason for the military鈥檚 interest may be Radia鈥檚 claim that the WindRunner could land on and take off from dirt airstrips as short as 1800 metres. 鈥淲ith its ability to land on short, unpaved runways, it will provide flexibility in times of humanitarian crisis and combat,鈥� says Bibb.
But at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defence policy think tank in Washington DC, says this feat 鈥� and other manoeuvres like getting into position to load and unload cargo 鈥� will be 鈥渧ery challenging鈥� if the world鈥檚 largest aircraft travels to austere airstrips in remote locations.
Adapting a specialised wind-turbine carrier to become a multi-role cargo aircraft is also difficult, though not impossible, says Malandrino. The WindRunner鈥檚 proposed range of 2000 kilometres with a full payload could prove most useful for shorter airlift missions between military air bases that have typical paved runways within North America, South America or Europe. If the design enables aerial refuelling, a capability that the US military鈥檚 current heavy cargo aircraft already have, that would enable the WindRunner to operate from locations further afield.
