4 ms·

I would think a 'fleet' or swarm of lifting vehicles, airships, drones, etc would make more sense than pioneering an entire custom airplane of such scale.

gnicholas 3y ago
Same here. I understand it would be dangerous to transport something so large, exposed to the wind. But couldn't they partially assemble it and then do the last parts on-site?
- nradov 3y ago
  A turbine blade isn't something that you can partially assemble. They looked into building temporary blade factories on site but the analysis indicates that a custom airplane is cheaper and less risky.
icegreentea2 3y ago
Given that lifting fleets/swarms don't exist, I think that scaling up a conventional aircraft is actually lower risk. Aside from the technical risk getting lifting fleets/swarms certified would be an extremely novel development. Super jumbo aircraft should have a much more smooth regulatory pathway. While the physical scale of the aircraft is huge, its actual lift capacity isn't groundbreaking. They quoted 80 tons. That's well within the capacity of today's military strategic lift (C-17s can lift 85 tons). And in terms of size comparison, compared to the An-225 (RIP), the quoted dimensions are 108m (Windrunner) vs 84m, 24m high 18m, 80m wingspan vs 88m. Certainly a non-trival increase in linear size, but it's not a magnitude leap either.
dredmorbius 3y ago
This was one of my own first two thoughts on TFA, the other being that given this as a proposal, one clear advantage of offshore windfarms is that transporting construction modules to the site should be vastly more straightforward: ship or barge towers and blades directly. This could work for farms both in ocean waters or large lakes. But other than that, the idea that blades might be shipped by some other mode (overland, barge, special-purpose rail, possibly) to a proximate location, then drone-ferried to the actual construction site ... seems a more viable option. And yes, drone lift-swarms comprised of multiple units yoked together and lifting a blade or set of blades ... seems more viable. Distances travelled should be relatively short (roughly, 10s to a few 100s of km), transport speeds need not be high, and flight profiles could be quite low altitude. Even if not drones, a ferry aircraft that could transition between vertical and horizontal flight modes, similar to the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, but, say, with an open cargo frame, might be a better fit. These could take off from a standard runway if desired, but also land and take off vertically from a cleared landing zone (potentially a barge or floating dock, in the case of offshore farms). Airships might be another option, though the ballast problem (as cargo is offloaded, an equivalent weight of ballast would need to be onboarded to prevent the airship from floating away), and poor handling in even modestly windy conditions (likely around wind farms) would probably prove problematic.

gnicholas 3y ago

Same here. I understand it would be dangerous to transport something so large, exposed to the wind. But couldn't they partially assemble it and then do the last parts on-site?

nradov 3y ago
A turbine blade isn't something that you can partially assemble. They looked into building temporary blade factories on site but the analysis indicates that a custom airplane is cheaper and less risky.

icegreentea2 3y ago

Given that lifting fleets/swarms don't exist, I think that scaling up a conventional aircraft is actually lower risk. Aside from the technical risk getting lifting fleets/swarms certified would be an extremely novel development. Super jumbo aircraft should have a much more smooth regulatory pathway. While the physical scale of the aircraft is huge, its actual lift capacity isn't groundbreaking. They quoted 80 tons. That's well within the capacity of today's military strategic lift (C-17s can lift 85 tons). And in terms of size comparison, compared to the An-225 (RIP), the quoted dimensions are 108m (Windrunner) vs 84m, 24m high 18m, 80m wingspan vs 88m. Certainly a non-trival increase in linear size, but it's not a magnitude leap either.

dredmorbius 3y ago

This was one of my own first two thoughts on TFA, the other being that given this as a proposal, one clear advantage of offshore windfarms is that transporting construction modules to the site should be vastly more straightforward: ship or barge towers and blades directly. This could work for farms both in ocean waters or large lakes. But other than that, the idea that blades might be shipped by some other mode (overland, barge, special-purpose rail, possibly) to a proximate location, then drone-ferried to the actual construction site ... seems a more viable option. And yes, drone lift-swarms comprised of multiple units yoked together and lifting a blade or set of blades ... seems more viable. Distances travelled should be relatively short (roughly, 10s to a few 100s of km), transport speeds need not be high, and flight profiles could be quite low altitude. Even if not drones, a ferry aircraft that could transition between vertical and horizontal flight modes, similar to the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, but, say, with an open cargo frame, might be a better fit. These could take off from a standard runway if desired, but also land and take off vertically from a cleared landing zone (potentially a barge or floating dock, in the case of offshore farms). Airships might be another option, though the ballast problem (as cargo is offloaded, an equivalent weight of ballast would need to be onboarded to prevent the airship from floating away), and poor handling in even modestly windy conditions (likely around wind farms) would probably prove problematic.