Zeppelins on Patrol?

Our Man In Redmond writes "Everything old is new again: The Seattle Post-Inteligencer is reporting that NORAD is considering deploying zeppelins along the west coast and Canadian border to keep an eye out for terrorists. Larger than jumbo jets, easier to repair/upgrade than satellites, this may be an idea whose time has come. Again."

Comments

Re:Larger than a Jumbo?

[Gordonjcp]

Iron oxide, mixed with powdered aluminium.

Read that again: Iron oxide, mixed with powdered aluminium.

Not got it yet? Basically, that's what thermite is. Go and Google for thermite, or thermite reaction, and see what turns up...

I watched a documentary about it a couple of years back, in which a recent investigation turned up fabric samples from around the time the Hindenburg was built. They had been tested for fire resistance, and were clearly labelled something along the lines of "Don't use this stuff, it's worse than no fireproofing".

Germany�s two approaches: Zeppelin vs. Cargolifter

[HeinzHarry]

Here in Germany, we have two companies building Airships - both for different purposes. One of them is about to file for bankrupcy - just within the next couple of days. While Zeppelin seems to be doing quite well offering flights to the public and building highgly priced Zeppelin Z1, Cargolifter stopped developing their product, the C160 Airship - which was supposed to carry 160 tons of payload - just yesterday. If there is a need for a hangar in the US... there is one spare in Germany pretty soon i guess.

Here are two links to these companies and to an article about cargolifter:

Zeppelin Germany

Cargolifter Germany

Yahoo on Cargolifter

Re:This is utterly ridiculous.

[joshki]

These are supposed to replace the NATO planes that have been flying AWACS missions over the US since september 11th. They are obviously not going to stop a truck bomb -- but they do give us "eyes and ears" in the sky to look for those jetliners that are off course and heading towards a tall building. Fighters can't see very far -- they need an "eye in the sky" to direct them, and that's what these things would be doing. My guess is that they're a whole lot cheaper to operate than the NATO AWACS aircraft that have been up since September 11th -- also they're much more sustainable -- they can stay up a lot longer without refueling...