It's about time.
I love the isea, and it will work. But I hope that they at least have a layer of kevlar around the airship so no small arms fire can take out a billion dollar Blimp.

1000 tons, WHEW thats would be impresive to see!
They could take a few notes from HAA (High Altitude Airship) and the CargoLifter Airships. There building on that can lift 160 tons, and there a commercial company so the military could deffinatly make a 500 ton one.

They pic of it looks cool to. Hope as a JIC (Just in case) that they make those bottom compartments unhook and drop with a parachute, in case a missile would hit it. Although i'm sure they would have the main blimp gas chambers be seperated and fire retardant so an RPG wouldn't take her down.

Originally posted by Murcielago
I hope that they at least have a layer of kevlar around the airship so no small arms fire can take out a billion dollar Blimp.

It's nearly impossible to shoot down a blimp, especially one that carries an inert lifting gas like helium. Blimps have such a low internal pressure that the internal gas takes forever to leak out even through relatively large holes. A blimp could take small arms fire all day and it wouldn't come down.

Im sure they will have some Kevlar or some material very durable I mean you don't want 1.800 troops going down. Also it says it can hold 1.800 troops lets take the average weight maybe around 170lb x 1.800 damn that is alot not to mention their gear or does their gear get transported the old fashion way and not in the blimp?

According to AWST, Homeland security is also ooking at them for stationary radar centers. The border patroll already usues them, but given thier huge lift capacity, you could get a huge phased array over the CONUS and spot stuff from quite a ways off.