Military Blimps Report for Duty

[Rose Siding]

In the era of $300 million fighter jets, satellite-guided rockets and complicated battlefield computer networks, Multimax Inc. is trying to revive an old-fashioned technology to thrust the information technology firm onto the front line. The Largo company has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this new project, the design looks like an elliptical UFO, but the result will be familiar: It's a blimp.

"It is somewhat uncharted waters" for the firm, said Ron Oholendt, a retired Air Force colonel and the program manager. The company has enlisted help from NASA and scientists at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which is analyzing the design, and last year began hunting for support from the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security or the Director of National Intelligence. With $14 million, the company could finish building and test a prototype for its airship, which they call the Maxflyer, Oholendt said. The company plans to submit a proposal for the system with the Homeland Security Department on Friday, he said.

Multimax is one of several defense companies pouncing on the military's renewed interest in using high-flying, unmanned, helium-filled balloons -- sometimes tied to the ground with a long rope -- as possible weapons. Lockheed Martin Corp. is developing a blimp that it says will reach an altitude of 65,000 feet, while Raytheon Co. is developing one designed to reach 10,000 feet and be tethered to the ground. Blackwater USA, better known as one of the largest security contractors in Iraq, expects to finish its prototype, which aims to reach an altitude of 5,000 feet to 15,000 feet, in December.

The military's interest is driven by a search for cheap alternatives to satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/06/AR2006080600499.html

[kineneb]

1. next comes biplanes!

Quick, get out that ancient copy of "Blue Max". Back to the future?

[davepc]

2. Everything old is new again.

During WWI London was bombed by German airships.

[manic expression]

3. Paging all Peltasts

We'll show those insurgents yet!

[Baclava]

4. UFO shaped blimps?

Obviously part of the cover-up designed to create false reports of sightings.
This can only mean the aliens are stepping up their colonization tempo.
Good plan.

I, for one, will welcome our alien overlords.

[krispos42]

8. Why on God's green earth would aliens invade?

We broke our planet, and only a very very generous alien species would try to help us dig out of it. For the rest of them... we broke it, we bought it! And now we've got ot fix it.

[lpbk2713]

11. To serve man.

I had to ...... I had to.


:rofl:

[OneBlueSky]

5. let's see . . . big, slow moving, close to the ground . . .

sounds like a mighty inviting target to me . . . like maybe with a rifle . . .

[Zhade]

6. BREAKING: Iraqis, Others Begin Work On Line Of Giant Needles

NT!

[Sherman A1]

7. One more time

Every few years, out comes the Blimps in the military story. It's pretty much a recycle of a recycle of a recycle. Actually think they could be of benefit, but I doubt they would ever be purchased as they just are not "sexy" enough.

[krispos42]

9. The idea holds promise

Think of it an an AWACS plane without the 'airplane' part. A blimp could have a phased-array radar at the heart of the gas envelope and a few arrays of surveillence camera mounted on the bottom. High-res cameras with zoom lenses, FLIR, and an ELINT package. Be able to read an insurgent's wristwatch at fifty miles or whatever. Maybe even include a laser designator so the Air Force can have a little fun too.

Have an artillery battery protecting the blimp. When the enemy gets too close, use the vantage point of the blimp to walk artillery fire right down onto the attackers. Hell, with some Copperhead 155mm rounds the blimp could target individual tanks and APCs.

Might even be able to deploy them from warships, so a destroyer or cruiser could stay just outside territorial waters and do plenty of high-tech snooping on the enemy. I think the Navy has some laser-guided 5" shells as well.

[ChristianLibrul]

10. The blimp has always been a good idea

One big blimp could replace a dozen 18-wheelers, deliver goods faster and cheaper, and make highways safer. During WWII, the Navy had many blimps for coastal submarine patrols. But Detroit, Big Oil and Grumman, for example, owned politicians and therefore killed the airship in favor of more expensive cars and trucks.

[krispos42]

12. Blimps require huge support facilities, that;'s part of the problem

Huge hangers and a plentiful supply of helium. They don't move particularly fast and are a handful in bad weather. It is debatable whether the resources that went into building US Navy blimps for coastal patrol could have been better used by building anti-submarine patrol bombers instead.

The Hindenburg was some 800 feet long, had a net lift of 123 US tons, and had a maximum airspeed of 84 mph. A C-5 Galaxy is 247 feet long, can haul 130 tons, and has a maximum speed of 570 miles per hour. The both must land and take off from large airports, although the blimp can hover while the C-5 needs a runway of some kind.

Of couse, the C-5 can also drop cargo either by paracute or one of those low-altitude drogue drops on an empty field.

The cheapest way to haul things long-distance over land is by train, but that limits the cargo to established track. The most convenient is by truck because is uses the surface streets that connect every building in the country.