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: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...