The WebGL animation at the top is really cool. It’s probably smaller than a video too, and much sharper

When I saw this comment before loading the article, I thought “this is probably the New Yorker”. I think they produce the best visuals across all the online publications.

The artist https://www.carlburton.io/

I wonder how they modeled the clouds and the aerodynamics near the tips of the wings.

What makes you think it's WebGL? It looks like an mp4 to me, at least I was able to download the mp4. It's sharp because it's high resolution.

But maybe they're serving different content depending on the client.