Thank you for the opportunity to review the Manuscript wes-2026-61 entitled "Predicting wind turbine aerodynamic loads using laser scanned blade geometry with validation based on operational and structural data" for the Journal of Wind Energy Science.

To the best of my knowledge, I have thoroughly reviewed the manuscript, and I would recommend in accepting the manuscript based on my review.

Thanks again for providing the opportunity to contribute the review support to maintain the quality standard of Wind Energy Science Journal.

I look forward to contributing more review support, so please share any additional manuscripts within my area of expertise. Thank you!

The manuscript presents a methodology for an accurate prediction of aerodynamic loads in a wind turbine with an 80 m rotor diameter using OpenFAST, supported by TLS measurements and validated using SCADA data and tower strain measurements. This is an important and relevant research topic and this reviewer found the manuscript very interesting to read. The manuscript is well-written and well-understandable with nice supporting figures.

Still, this reviewer has some comments and questions regarding the procedure and the results, which is why some clarifications should be made before the paper is accepted for publication.

• Please specify if you refer to onshore or offshore wind turbines. I suppose your study is only applicable to onshore wind turbines as it becomes very difficult to perform TLS offshore, but you do not mention/define this in the text. Also, please specify the installed capacity in this regard in lines 17ff, do you mean total capacity or are you only considering onshore wind here?
• Figure 4:
• Please highlight for cross-section B which are the dummy gauges for temperature compensation and which are the actual strain gauges – maybe even within the notation. This is especially important with regard to your explanations in lines 135f, regarding the high scatter in M_SS.
• Please define the notations (S=strain, T=temperature). It is pretty clear but, still, this should be defined in the text. Also, it is a bit unfortunate that the strain gauges have the same notation for the two cross-sections. Maybe consider to put the cross-section or height in the names so that they are unique (not only by color in the figure).
• (Very minor:) Maybe put the wind speed bin legend on the right side of the figure, next to the actual wind speed characterization.

• I am no expert on the calculation you present in Section 3. It is well-explained, however, what I don’t understand here fully is how the two cross-sectional measurements go into Equation 4? You explain the calculation using the example of having only one (cross-sectional) measurement if I understand Figure 8 correctly? How is the second cross-section included? Or do you calculate the tower-top value two times based on two cross-sections and take a mean (if so, you did not mention anything about this)? Please clarify.
• Please define which version of OpenFAST is utilized.
• Please provide more information regarding the optimization process in Section 4.2. Is it a local gradient-based optimization algorithm, what are the settings regarding number of evaluations and other possible hyperparameters?
• I am not sure if you answered this in the text (Section 4): How did you discretize the blade length into the different cross-sectional airfoil scans? Based on this, how many optimization procedures did you conduct exactly? I believe you only state “for all candidate airfoils”, line 222 – are those all you measured? Did you select some? Please provide more details.
• Figure 21: Is the rotor thrust and torque a value that is an output from OpenFAST or did you calculate that also using Section 3 from the simulated bending moments? Please add this information.
• Please list the main observed discrepancies as bullet points for better overview (lines 377ff).
• Good job on the parameter study and the associated explanation and discussion of the results. Are there any additional parameters that can be looked at on top of the five selected parameters – maybe you can elaborate on that? (Not that you should do additional parameter studies, simply discuss what else can be of influence – if there is anything?)
• You show what has influence and what is plausible and what isn’t. But what is your suggestion now, what can be done about it? You only state “future work will focus on the calibration”. But please add already in this manuscript a (short) discussion about what can be done next to be able to go on with the model, e.g. for load or even lifetime calculations. Is it simply the user’s definition and experience? Maybe an optimization process can be helpful – of course with realistic parameter ranges based on the available information (in your case more than usual due to the TLS measurements)? Something else to look at?
  
  Would measurements inside the blade have been helpful? Or in general additional measurement positions? What about modal data also for further validation purposes, would that be helpful provided that the sampling rate is high enough to look at the first eigenmodes (of the whole turbine and maybe of the blades if sensors would have been installed)? Did you have access also to accelerometers or were only strain gauges installed?
  
  (You don’t have to answer all of this in the manuscript, this is more my own interest and maybe something for you to consider or is this not interesting for your purposes?)

Some additional minor comments

• Please specify the word “utility-scale” (lines 5f, 61) earlier than in Section 2 and add a number (range) regarding, e.g., rotor diameter so that the reader has an idea of what you are considering already when reading abstract and introduction.
• Similar comment regarding the considered uncertainties (lines 11, 66) – please give at least examples of what you are analyzing in particular so that the reader does not have to wonder what exactly you are considering until reading Section 7.
• Line 19: Do you have a more recent number than the one in 2024?
• Line 61: What exactly are “structural health measurements”? Please be more precise. E.g. in line 335 and the title of Fig. 19 & 20 you call it “SHM measurements”, I would recommend to simply speak of strain measurements or the calculated loads based on these strain measurements.
• Please be consistent regarding the use of Section or Sect. / Figure or Fig.
• Title of Figure 9 should include “estimated rotor loads at the tower top based on …”
• Line 349 & 360: Figure(s)