Another possibility is that this method would need to be certified, which manufacturers would only do if the business asks for it.

Finally, for an 80m long blade, the mass must approach maybe 40? 50 tonnes? (approximation based on http://www.upwind.eu/media/729/D3-4-3%20Cost%20Model%20Blade.pdf), which few helicopters (if any) can carry.

I would imagine that a crane could capture and do the final positioning. But I’m just guessing….

I could see someone wearing Snoopy goggles flying the complete turbine into place….

On a more serious note I do wonder why onshore blades are not flown to the site at times. We had a local wind farm curtailed because a land route would have meant moving one or more historical houses.

Around here we use “flying cranes” regularly to lift massive tree trunks out of less accessible places. One would think an hour of chopper time would be less expensive than moving buildings, taking down power poles, etc.

Stats: http://www.vestas.com/en/wind-power-plants/procurement/turbine-overview/v164-8.0-mw-offshore.aspx#/vestas-univers

They must’ve squeezed an additional megawatt of power out of the V-164, since the video press release I saw a few months ago clearly showed this turbine being 7MW…