Blue Devil Spy Blimp Watching From Above, page 1

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Topic started on 24-1-2011 @ 02:13 PM by wisdomnotemotion

Blue Devil Spy Blimp Watching From Above

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Dread zeppelin
‘Blue Devil’ — the US military’s massive new eye in the Afghan sky

www.nypost.com...

Come this fall, there will be a new and extremely powerful supercomputer in Afghanistan. But it won’t be in Dave Petraeus’ headquarters in Kabul or at some three-letter agency’s operations center in Kandahar. It’ll be floating 20,000 feet above the war zone, aboard a giant, robotic spy blimp that watches and listens to everything for miles around.

That is, if an ambitious, $211 million crash program called “Blue Devil” works out as planned. As of now, the unmanned airship’s “freakishly large” hull — seven times the size of the Goodyear blimp’s — has yet to be put together. The Air Force hasn’t settled yet on exactly which cameras and listening devices will fly on board. And it’s still an open question whether the military can handle all the information that the airship will be collecting from above.

The military is spending billions on a fleet of lighter-than-air craft. But none of those other airships will have Blue Devil’s on-board smarts. Listening devices will pick up cellphone chatter for miles around. Surveillance cameras can watch the outside of a compound or a car. Infrared lenses can spot insurgents setting up nighttime ambushes. Targeting radar tracks vehicle and foot traffic. Receivers and transmitters can relay orders or collect information from movement detectors planted in the ground.

I presume this thing is already up there, few of them at least.

reply posted on 24-1-2011 @ 02:29 PM by ThinkingCap

......The next person who smiles at me before saying the phrase "eye in the sky" gets hit in the nose.

But I am not very surprised. Perhaps this goes to show what they aren't capable of, considering the cost and size of this craft. Or maybe this is just a bit of propaganda, to make some believe that this "blue devil" will actually be used on a regular basis compared to undisclosed technologies.

reply posted on 24-1-2011 @ 02:52 PM by CastleMadeOfSand

That thing better have good defensive capabilities. It only takes one bullet or rocket to bring it down leaving only a pile of multi-million dollar scrap.

reply posted on 24-1-2011 @ 03:00 PM by prexparte

reply to post by wisdomnotemotion

In Sierra Vista Az where FOrt Huacchuca AFB is lodacted There has been one there sense before 2003 that I know of, my daughter lives there and this past summer when i went to visit her there was another one in the sky only in the town of wimbleton...When i lived there in 2003 I was told it was because it is a botarder city and it is used for various reasons from, watching for possible war attaacks to watching for illegals crossing and drug trafficing.
I always wondered if what I was told is true about those big white blimps

reply posted on 24-1-2011 @ 03:10 PM by Ophiuchus 13

reply to post by wisdomnotemotion

Imagine these global over EVERY CITY

This is an excuse SO IT CAN be used on the very people who ok it USED ON OTHERS NOW, PEOPLE REMEMBER!?!?!?!?!?!?

reply posted on 25-1-2011 @ 01:38 AM by bg_socalif

Originally posted by CastleMadeOfSand
That thing better have good defensive capabilities. It only takes one bullet or rocket to bring it down leaving only a pile of multi-million dollar scrap.

That would be a heckuva shot at 20,000 feet.

2nd

reply posted on 25-1-2011 @ 02:01 AM by Common Good

reply to post by CastleMadeOfSand

I heard him say something about kevlar at the end of the vid.

That would be a lot of kevlar to wrap around that thing, and heavy too.

But I know nothing about these things

reply posted on 25-1-2011 @ 02:34 AM by 12voltz

They were using these dirigibles in WW1 as look outs but instead of supercomputers they had a human,good idea until they found out what good targets they make.

reply posted on 26-1-2011 @ 03:05 AM by miracleretiree

add 8 smaller ships that come out of it,and you could call it a carrier.

reply posted on 26-1-2011 @ 03:20 PM by allenidaho

This cash cow doesn't make it's first test flight until around October. It serves the same basic principle as a satellite but is always over the target area so you will always have picture.

I believe they were supposed to have built the inflatible shell out of Vectran, which is twice as strong as kevlar. But with cost cutting measures these days, it wouldn't surprise me if they went with kevlar instead.

reply posted on 10-2-2011 @ 12:26 PM by darpa999

Ok, how would this blimp be transported from the US to Afghanistan? Would they take it apart and be flown in a C-5 Galaxy for instance?

Also, this is too big for enemies to spot especially at 20,000 feet.....

I know one blimp developed by DARPA that can cruise at much higher altitudes like 90,000 feet.

reply posted on 10-2-2011 @ 12:35 PM by Violater1

reply to post by wisdomnotemotion

This was flying back in the 90's.

The full scale blimp will have 3 levels. One side of the three levels would slope or cant downward, enabling all three levels to simultaneously load or unload.

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