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Blimp-like aerostats are heading to D.C. area
WASHINGTON - The blimp-like aircraft called aerostats are designed to protect against terrorist attacks from thousands of feet above the clouds. Soon, they are coming to the Washington, D.C. area. The aerostats are filled with helium and are three-fourths of the size of a football field. They fly up to 10,000 feet above sea level while tethered to mobile stations on the ground. They carry powerful, 360-degree radars that can see threats beyond the horizon, alerting the military of potential… (wtop.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
It don't say how many are coming, but at $450 million a pop, ain't that just a little bit of over kill?
At least 2 are required - it seems they operate in pairs. And they are tethered, so the cable is one more obstacle to clutter the airspace - that'll need a no-fly zone around each one.
I was thinkn' no fly zone as well. Wouldn't that make them and that area an automatic target as well?
Nothing is too expensive for our special 545. :-)
i remember one in baghdad (biap), as well as many other FOB's. the one in Baghdad was accidentally cut loose several times, due to high rotary traffic. at least three times that i know of was the tether cut because a helo crew didn't read the advisory and hit the line. to top it off, the aerostat became a real target to be chased and shot down, as the prevailing winds would carry the blimp and its associated high tech collection gear towards iran
I used to fly down there from Tampa and always made sure I avoided the Prohibited airspace around them. My cousin worked on them until his foot got caught in a guy rope while launching it. He was carried up about 20ft. before he got loose, broke his ankle and retired from the job. One was a downlooking radar to catch drug smugglers or other scarry stuff out there:-)the other one was to broadcast propaganda to Cuba. A waste and a hazard to navigation then and the same now. Just more money for the defence contractors and more toys for the military. What's going to attack us that our ships and aircraft already deployed can't detect. The boogy man they try to keep us scared of does'nt have the weapons and means to deliver them unles the US sells it to them, which would'nt be too far fetched.