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Comment by Arrath | Hacker News Reader

> (and apparently a purpose-built airstrip for every destination)

Having built a 64-turbine windfarm back in the 2000's (so they were likely smaller than they are now) a goodly chunk of the work involved was site prep in building access roads traversable by the cranes required to set everything up, and the massively over-length trailers carrying the blades. Things like maximum grade, radius of the turns, breakover angle etc were hugely important.

Grading out and paving an airstrip when you already have an appreciable contingent of heavy earthworking equipment onsite and, likely, also a concrete batch plant to reduce the travel time for the concrete you're using for the foundations really isn't too big of a stretch!

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Why can't the blades be broken down into managable segments and assembled on-site? The military folds and unfolds airplane wings all the time on aircraft carriers.

(It's an honest question; you must have thought of it, of course.)

The tips of the blades travel close to the speed of sound. The blades are quite difficult to manufacture as it is, it's a big challenge to add intentional weak points and/or weight by making them foldable.

The tips of fighter aircraft wings travel faster than the speed of sound, deal with far more stress (from turns, explosions, etc.), and the wings I expect are more complex and difficult to manufacture - but they fold.

I'm not saying you are wrong, but by themselves those factors aren't entirely convincing to me.

(Also, the wings need to fold and unfold repeatedly over their lifetime; the blades could just be, in theory, shipped in pieces and then assembled once).

Mega budgets and maintenance schedules.

Fighter aircraft also have a very short lifespan measured in thousands of flight hours and enjoy constant maintenance compared to a wind turbine expected to work 24/7 for decades with minimal maintenance.

Landing strip construction could work well as part of overhead line construction. You have an existing design that favours long straight lines and a need to build a haul road. Although the scenario where this was actually useful might be fairly unique.

Their website says it can land on a packed dirt airstrip, 6000ft long. I wonder if they would park all the nearby windmills during takeoff/landing, to avoid creating swirly air.

Turbulence created by the blades is negligible to a large plane. Planes this big can easily fly into hurricanes [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_WP-3D_Orion

There aren't any planes that can fly easily into hurricanes.

All planes can easily fly into a hurricane.

At this size the plane's swirly air (wake turbulence) would be a more significant concern

Especially as it'll be a "large, light" aircraft. Might be more susceptible than a "small, dense" one.

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