Image source: topwar.ru
The American aerospace company Radia will build a WindRunner for the US Department of Defense, which will become the largest military transport aircraft in history. The developer stated this at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference 2025, presenting the military configuration of the product (initially, a civilian version was created for transporting, for example, blades from wind farms).
According to him, the ultra-large military-technical complex, adapted to perform defense tasks, is designed to make up for the lack of funds for air transportation in the interests of the US and NATO forces. This is a long-standing problem for the alliance, which was forced to use Russian and Ukrainian aircraft, mainly the An-124 Ruslan, to transport and supply troops, in particular, during the Afghan campaign. Cooperation with Moscow in this area has been destroyed, and the Ukrainian military-technical cooperation park is rapidly deteriorating. At the same time, NATO's logistical needs have not gone away.
Radia positions the WindRunner as an "ultra-large cargo airliner" capable of handling all bulky shipments. The company emphasized that the aircraft is optimized in terms of internal volume for cargo transportation, rather than payload mass, which makes it possible to transport entire systems without disassembling them.
Image source: topwar.ru
It is stated that the internal volume of the WindRunner exceeds 6800 cubic meters, which is about 7 times larger than the cargo compartment of the C-5 Galaxy and 12 times larger than the C-17 Globemaster III. Thus, the new military-technical complex will be able to transport 6 fully assembled CH-47 Chinook helicopters, while the C-17 can carry only one vehicle of this model and then after its disassembly. Other examples of loading per flight include 4 CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor planes, 4 F-16 or F-35C fighters, and 12 Apache helicopters.
The WindRunner will have the ability to take off and land on unpaved runways with a length of about 1,800 m, which will allow it to be used in remote, harsh or storm-affected areas (for example, in the Arctic or the Asia-Pacific region) inaccessible to conventional large-sized aircraft.
Image source: topwar.ru
The WindRunner is 108 m long, has a wingspan of 80 m, a height of 24 m, and a planned cruising speed of 0.6 Mach (740 km/h). The payload will be limited to 73 tons, which is lower than that of historical heavy trucks such as the AN-225 (247 tons), AN-124 (150 tons) or C-5 Galaxy (129 tons). However, the volume of the cargo hold is much larger than that of any existing aircraft. With a flight range of up to 2 thousand km, the car also loses to a number of military-technical vehicles, but, as the developer explains, the design focuses again on the volume of cargo, and not on the range of its transportation.
The development plan calls for the first flight of the WindRunner by the end of the decade and the start of its operation around 2030. The engine type has not yet been disclosed, but it is reported that it will be an existing certified model. At the moment, financing in the amount of about $150 million has been attracted, and negotiations on further investments are underway with public and private organizations.
