Radia has announced its first supplier partners on development of the WindRunner, planned to be the world’s largest aircraft and designed to fly giant wind turbine blades directly to onshore wind farms. “As a veteran of the wind turbine industry, I can attest to the urgent need for the solution that WindRunner represents,” says Aernnova CEO Ricardo Chocarro, who was previously CEO of onshore business for Spanish-German wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa. “The WindRunner initiative is an interesting example of how the aerospace industry continues to provide a key contribution to sustainability,” says Stefano Bortoli, managing director of Leonardo’s aerostructures division. Read more in Aviation Week's exclusive story on Radia's newly announced partners Aernnova, Leonardo and AFuzion.

Ask people what they think of when they hear the words “flying” and “climate” and their answers are likely to involve negative environmental impacts. Mark Lundstrom is working to rewrite this narrative, as the founder and CEO of Radia, a company building the world’s biggest aeroplane. In a recent episode of the World Economic Forum’s Meet the Leader podcast, Lundstrom talked to Linda Lacina about the development of this ambitious craft and turbines, and the drivers behind his work in the clean energy space. Here are some key messages from the conversation.

Mark Lundstrom is the CEO and founder of Radia. In this episode of World Economic Forum's Meet the Leader podcast, he explains to host Linda Lacina why he's building the world's largest plane – and how that can speed progress on tackling emissions. He also shares why this company is focused on using just existing technologies, and why this approach can lead to a host of new solutions for innovators and tackle big challenges more quickly.

The Radia team is excited to attend Farnborough International Airshow, the ground-breaking biennial event that brings together the world’s top aerospace, aviation and defense leaders. Find Radia at Stand 41060 in Hall 4, where you can get an exclusive VR experience of the full-sized WindRunner. Radia team members will be available to discuss WindRunner and our plans to radically expand the scope and scale of the onshore wind energy industry, including developing a world-class portfolio of wind energy projects to leverage the aircraft.

Unlocking potential to build the biggest turbines on land will ‘roughly triple’ global area in which wind is economically viable. Onshore wind is crucial to helping the world decarbonise but has long been limited by the problem that the biggest turbine blades are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to deliver by land. WindRunner will be able to fly a turbine blade up to 105 metres – as long as a football pitch – to a wind farm.

Wind energy’s CO2e emissions impact is mostly frontloaded and unrelated to the turbine’s energy generation. While transportation has a small impact compared to the contribution of manufacturing and raw materials (which contribute up to 90% of CO2e emissions associated with wind energy), GigaWind – Radia’s term for the largest onshore wind turbines of today and the even larger ones of tomorrow – ultimately mitigates the impact of all by maximizing green wind energy output at lower cost and higher efficiency. WindRunner itself is designed to operate with the smallest possible impact on CO2e emissions. Take a deeper look at how WindRunner and GigaWind have a net positive impact, both in the short term and in the complete lifecycle of a GigaWind energy project.

When it takes to the skies, the Radia WindRunner will be the world’s largest cargo plane. As fascinating as it is, what’s most interesting about Radia to me isn’t the aircraft itself. Indeed, founder and CEO Mark Lundstrom told me over coffee that he directed the company’s engineers to follow the mantra of “do nothing new.” The plane is built using existing technologies to ease the engineering and subsequent certification process. Radia will be an energy company, building clean energy projects, says Lundstrom. And those wind projects are only the cornerstone in Lundstorm’s vision of a much bigger energy company. Read more from TIME's Justin Worland.

Manufacturers of today’s and tomorrow’s largest onshore turbines – what Radia calls GigaWind – face a colossal challenge when it comes to deployment. Due to GigaWind’s enormous size – particularly its blades – manufacturers find it practically impossible to transport these blades on the ground. The three most obvious solutions currently available to get around this challenge are segmented blades, manufacturing blades onsite and aerial transport, but the only solution that will work for GigaWind is Radia’s purpose-built aerial transport solution, the WindRunner – the world’s largest aircraft.

A Colorado-based startup wants to build the world's largest cargo plane that's about the length of a football field. Its sole purpose: to deliver giant wind turbine blades. Tall turbine towers with bigger blades can harness more energy since they can take better advantage of the faster wind speeds available at high altitudes. But the bigger the blades, the harder they are to transport. Radia's giant cargo plane, called the WindRunner, hopes to fly over those barriers.