US Army's New Giant Super Blimp - Wonder How Many "Sightings" That One Caused?

Originally posted by crawdad1914
reply to post by flexy123

 

I see a defensive flaw in that ballon.The average 10 year old could likely pop that sucker with their BB-Gun.

Perhaps not -

The LEMV’s skin - a blend of Vectran, Kevlar and Mylar - will be able to cope with a “reasonable amount of small arms fire.”[4]

-wiki

Originally posted by tvtexan
reply to post by flexy123

 

Uhhh... Super Blimp?

Trillions on Defense spending, and we get a Super Blimp!?

What's next, the all new Super Catapult?

Someone, somewhere is sitting on a big pile of taxpayer money, laughing their as* off!

edit on 10-8-2012 by tvtexan because: (no reason given)

That, or you are clueless and have no idea of the potential of blimps.
Blimps could replace aircraft in freight transport, say scientists

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

The LEMV’s skin - a blend of Vectran, Kevlar and Mylar - will be able to cope with a “reasonable amount of small arms fire.”[4]

-wiki

Here is one that was probably shot down..... they called it "controlled descent" lol.

Unmanned Army blimp crashes in Pa.
www.wavy.com...

Originally posted by Druscilla

I'm more than confident that this and earlier test versions of it have been seen and reported as UFOs.

There's been talk over the last decade or two of designing a troop carrier, and equipment payload design capable of carrying several main battle tanks and 100s of troops.

That would explain why a blimp needs a lifting body.

This is the first i've heard about a troop mover. It would be handy if we needed to bring all of our troops back to the US real quick.

Hooray! Another tool for domestic surveillance! This will fit in perfectly with the drones and with trapwire.

God bless America!

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
[
That, or you are clueless and have no idea of the potential of blimps.
Blimps could replace aircraft in freight transport, say scientists

You often hear this, but how come it never seems to quite happen??

Probably because the scientists making such predicions are being ...um...."a little over optimistic"....and because they are not economists.

for the counter-factual - why it is never going to happen - read this - why "heavy lift" airships are never going to happen

ther are still plenty of good uses for airships - surveillance & communications aer the 2 obvious ones - but not carrying any significant amount of commercial cargo.

Originally posted by imitator

Here is one that was probably shot down..... they called it "controlled descent" lol.

Unmanned Army blimp crashes in Pa.
www.wavy.com...

What do you thnk shot it down at 32,000 feet??

The blimp got to 32,000 feet but couldn't climb higher, so controllers in Akron, Ohio, decided to bring it down with a "controlled descent" in a sparsely populated area, some heavy woods near New Freeport, about 45 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

The 270-foot-long ship is 70 feet in diameter and filled with helium and air, which were released gradually to bring the ship to Earth.

(from your link)

or alternatively

Essentially an unmanned blimp, the HALE-D helium airship is a 130-foot-long, lighter-than-air vehicle built by Lockheed Martin. It was launched early on Wednesday, July 27, from Akron, Ohio, to test its communication relay, but encountered a problem and had to be brought down. “There was an anomaly in the system,” Lockheed Martin spokesman Keith Little says. “We still haven’t determined what.”

Once the craft reached 32,000 feet, it stopped climbing and couldn’t reach the 60,000-foot target threshold, so Lockheed decided to perform a controlled descent. “As we brought it down, we released helium and took in air,” Little said. “We determined that [this part of] Greene County was the best place because it was unpopulated.”

However, the craft is currently stuck in a wooded area, surrounded by marsh, making it difficult to retrieve.

- from popular mechanics

and here's an article from defensenews on the current "state of play" of US military airship programmes as of May - out of money, over-due, and failing to perform.

The basic equation for flight is (thrust + lift) - (weight + drag). Lift is suction and so it always causes drag. Lighter than Air vehicles always have alot of drag because of their big shape and large surface area.

A lighter-than-air vehicle that was also a lifting body would have so much drag that it would need to use the tides or trade winds to move long distances dependably.

The lifting body might be specifically for added altitude, especially when using a headwind.

Does anyone know if this was flying over long beach, California last night? I saw a huge blimp object when I was driving home

reply to post by TheLegend


I think that implying you would shoot at a US military aircraft is a way to get yourself into a heap of trouble!!

reply to post by flexy123


Surveillance is all the rage these days.

www.bgr.com...

I actually saw a similar blimp in Dallas in 1994-1995. The blimp looked exactly like this one:
i.dailymail.co.uk...

from this article:
www.dailymail.co.uk... fare.html

but it also had invisibility technology like in this article:
www.smartplanet.com...

I was sitting outside at around 1-2 a.m. and looked up and noticed a small cloud, in an otherwise cloudless sky, moving unnaturally. I then looked above the cloud and saw the outline of the blimp and windows although the blimp and windows were projecting some kind of reflective invisibility technology. The blimp lost some of its camouflage effect though as I watched it fly towards the city lights. There was some kind of discrepancy between reflecting the city lights and night sky at the same time. At one point, the entire blimp appeared to switch from being entirely lit up by reflecting the city lights to invisible again by reflecting the night sky. The little cloud that was traveling along underneath it gave it away initially but then the invisibility technology gave it away as it flew over the city. I imagine that the technology has been corrected by now though.

reply to post by chizeled


Or it was a long way away and hard to see details of?

Originally posted by tvtexan
reply to post by flexy123

 

Uhhh... Super Blimp?

Trillions on Defense spending, and we get a Super Blimp!?

What's next, the all new Super Catapult?

Someone, somewhere is sitting on a big pile of taxpayer money, laughing their as* off!

edit on 10-8-2012 by tvtexan because: (no reason given)

Had to respond to the above post...............

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha"

That was a funny post........

PDUK

Looks Cool for 1950.

Its Slow, Noisy and looks like a blimp....going to be a sitting duck for the enemy.

But someone will think its a UFO from Venus......or Uranus......

Tho I do like blimps and the technology.....now put a few scram jets on that baby and see how she really goes. Or even normal jet engines, for quick climbing and cruise...its light, should use less gas....

Those of you laughing about this really need to take a detailed look at it. The one talked about here is a prototype. A larger version just rolled out of the hangar, and it's one of the most advanced lighter than airships ever built. It's capable of taxiing on its own with no large groups of people pulling on guide ropes, and the lifting capacity is incredible.

Pelican is 230 feet long, weighs in at 36,000 pounds, and is self sufficient. It's variable buoyancy, and by next week they hope to complete a vertical take off, and offload a payload without taking on ballast, showing that they can use the buoyancy system to create ballast. It also has a rigid hull that doesn't require inflation pressure to remain rigid.

Ultimately they want to build a 450 foot airship, capable of moving 66 tons 3,000 nautical miles unrefueled.

.50 Caliber sniper round... Down she goes!

Looks like a massive (ugly) waste of money, and a disaster waiting to happen.


Blimps? Really... REALLY? At least go back to the rocket suits and hover platforms that look like flying coffee tables.

reply to post by DaRAGE


Show me a .50 cal round that is going to reach over 30K feet.