Reply With Quoteas long as it can fly safe, and cheap!
Military Airships: Hot Air or Soaring Promise?
The past decade has seen an unlikely revival of a long-grounded technology. Military airships, last operational with the U.S. Navy in the 1960s, took back to the skies, propelled by soaring demand for long-endurance, low-cost aerial surveillance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Per flight hour, an airship costs a fraction of what a helicopter or a fixed-wing plane costs.
But three of the most prominent new-breed airship programs came crashingback to earth in early 2012. A massive, in-development Air Force spy blimp, a Navy test blimp and an Army tethered airship that's part of an evolving missile-defense network -- all were canceled or curtailed. It might have seemed that the promise of a new generation of military blimps was, well, so much hot air.
http://defense.aol.com/2012/05/01/mi...est=latestnews
as long as it can fly safe, and cheap!
I dont really see how they are useful. They are easy targets - big, slow.
Many thanks, Mr. shermbodius.
Hate to see promising programs cancelled.
Long loiter time and significant payload size are huge strengths for ISR craft.Originally Posted by Nyusu
And yes, they are slow, but they operate at a significant altitude.
Walrus for the win:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walrus_HULA
Think about having the sensor packages from multiple UAVs and and a data/comms hub on a single platform that can orbit the battlespace indefinitely at an altitude above what small arms or MANPADs can reach.
Still unable to find a use for that?
Edit: Forgot to mention that the Army's JLENS aerostat mentioned in that article crashed & was destroyed last fall.
Last edited by PMI; 05-01-2012 at 03:42 PM.
I really, really hate the fact that we didn't pursue that!
More cargo carrying capacity than any aircraft, faster and more versatile than a ship.
The main problem with airships is that they can't really handle bad weather, and are very fragile.
The problem with aerostats is that they seem like a good idea: great promises of speed, durability, costefficienty, cargo,... but it is a fact that they are awefully vulnerable and hard to handle
Oh and for your entertainment the 1980 helistat
As long as we don't have any Hindenburg incidents and its cost effective, it would make a great weapon to the air force arsenal. Plus given the new tech developed sinced the 60's, their battlefield capabilities would be more formiddable. You would have to worry about AA missles and fighter aircraft, but that can be mitigated by having some Patriot batteries on the blimp to counter it.
You serious??????
Yeah. I don't see them being very useful on military surveillance on combat zones, on the other hand, regarding civilian surveillance on non-combat zones...
Who says they have to be big, convential air"ships".
They could be small, UAV, or even smaller sized. Miniaturization has caught up to the point where most people have HD cameras on their smartphones. The whole thing with the bodyframe, battery, camera, and sensors etc would probably weigh no more than 25 lbs. I imagine that this setup could probably be carried deflated in the backpack of a specialist. When it is needed, the specialist fills it up with a compressed helium canister, and lets it go, controlling it on a laptop type like device that many UGV's use. Instead of waiting for a UAV to be available to you, you could have it in your backpack, ready for use.
Ideas like that are out there, I know of an Airship advocate who is trying to get the USN to put VLS on a rigid airship for carrying ESSMs or potentially even SMs.
It may work for theathers like Afghanistan and Iraq where manpads and anti aircraft machineguns are the most potent air defense the adversary is having. But if you are fighting an oponent who can actually strike back i think that such an airship will be a pretty easy target. It will be easily detectable (the target being big and fly high will mean a very distant radar horizon for the aircraft who's trying to detect it) and the only thing left to do will be to design an extreme range air to air missile.Think about having the sensor packages from multiple UAVs and and a data/comms hub on a single platform that can orbit the battlespace indefinitely at an altitude above what small arms or MANPADs can reach.
Still unable to find a use for that?
Edit: Forgot to mention that the Army's JLENS aerostat mentioned in that article crashed & was destroyed last fall.
Now designing an airship for strategic airlift purposes (like in C.Puffs' example) sounds like an interesting idea.
There are all kinds of idiot ideas out there. The point being "idiot". Google Mike Sparks and the M113 Gavin for a laugh.
Posting Permissions
