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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."
What will happen when one of THESE flies into a building? It's an accident just waiting to happen.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
Gee Whiz.......
Sure is gonna be tough to outrun a big balloon eh? </Canadian Accent >
Won't drug runners and terrorists just look up in the sky and decide to take another route?
And they accuse Microsoft of never innovating: this is just a straight rip off of the Crimson Skies PC game!
Zeppelins
Their airborne capabilities, extensive line of sight, and ability to spot underwater units (as with all flying units) make them an integral part of the defense network. -- wc
we all know that without them a single turtle can wreak havoc to all Juggernaught's!
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
The result of one of these flying into a building would be similar to me bouncing a marshmallow off of your forehead.
It might catch you off guard at first, then piss you off as the shock and abject fright wore off, but no real harm would come to your forehead. The fate of the marshmallow wouldn't be the same, however, and this is to be expected.
High altitude balloons are hardly likely to trouble an Arab terrorist coming in on the American Airlines redeye service. Let alone the domestic terrorist who lives in Florida and mails you Anthrax.
Nope, they are useful for three things: observation, communication relay and radar. Now either someone is trying to hop on the 'terrorism' funding bandwagon, or someone is attempting to hide a technology that effect civil liberties under the same cover.
My personal guess is both. Someone has finally worked out that cruise missiles are easy to knock up and a threat to US cities - hence the need for good look down 24hour radar coverage. At the same time, an observation platform that could hover over a city, watching everyone, but not seen by anyone, has certain advantages.
Neither really does much to prevent the average terrorist - but its a nice way to sell your system.
Are there any existing WWII era derigible hangars still around on the West coast? I know of some at Moffat air field, which is controlled by NASA, but to my knowledge, that's about it. Where the heck are we going to garage/maintain these monsters?
Actually, a better question is, who makes derigibles in volume anymore? I don't exactly see Boeing, McDonald Douglas, or Newport News fitting into the bidding process too well - to my knowledge none of their units do any work relating to lighter-than-air patrol craft. How will the public react to our getting military hardware from Graf Zepplin (yes, they still make zepplins.)
Lastly, who would control and staff these craft? The Air Force? The Navy (which controlled the derigible fleets prior to and during WWII), or the Coast Guard (who are undermanned and underfunded - WAY undermanned and WAY underfunded)?
This will be of no use against any terrorist. Even if terrorists did attempt to cross the border outside of official channels (rather than use fake IDs, sailing a boat into a harbour, or simply live in the states themselves, they would be less than .1% of the total number of people trying to skip across the US-Canadian border or any other border. The rest would be boardertown locals, drug smugglers (we all know how effective the war on drugs has been, right?), and immigrants. Already, they try to and fail at stopping two of these groups from crossing the boarder, and in Mexico they even get flashy night-vision kit and a wall. It dosen't work. This won't either - more information just means you know more of what's going on. It dosen't mean you can be everywhere at once. The Zepplins will stand out of TV, however.
All you need now is a few supervillains and a well-meaning, but deeply troubled borderline psychopath in a batsuit and all of the West Coast's cities will officially be entered in the Gotham City look-alike contest.
(Yeah, so only about five people will get this joke, but all five of them are going to get a good laugh out of it.)
One of the primary advantages of Lighter Than Air Vehicles is that the surveillance packages and load outs can be changed almost on a whim. Try doing that with a satellite.
Although such vehicles are not very fast, they can be deployed very rapidly with electronics and crew that are mission specific, and can be very beneficial as remote command and information gathering/relay centers that can stay aloft for long periods of time. Not only that, but such vehicles could remain over an area for an indefinite amount of time conducting surveillance and intelligence gathering activities that satellites may not be able to do without interruption.
No one can guess what will happen next, but floating an extra set of eyes, ears and mouths up into the sky can be a very good thing.
Accidents. Derigibles were phased out because they were a bitch to land. You need mooring facilities, hangars big enough to hold them so moored craft can withstand a storm, and big crews to secure them. Several of the Navy's lighter-than-air fleet had accidents, mostly on landing (one was lost in a storm I think), and the Hindenburg didn't do much for the popularity of civilian derigibles.
The really funny thing is that the United States still manages a strategic Helium reserve! Yes, just as with oil, Helium is hoarded for possible military usage, even though we don't have a military derigible fleet anymore!
I agree that they once were a bitch to land, however, I believe that there is enough brain power and processing power out there now to tackle this issue...an issue that really hasn't had a lot of brain-time put into it since...1940 -1950?
How about not funding terrorism in Norther Ireland? That would be a good start. Cheap to implement, too...
How about not pissing off the Arabs? How about not bombing your allies? Perhaps you could stop arresting foreign nationals for doing things perfectly legally in their own countries?
Or, alternatively, stick up a great big wall around your country, to keep the "terrorists" out. Yeah, that's a great idea. Or, if you prefer, a "curtain", since you could say it hangs from these dirigibles... A curtain as strong as iron, that would be a great way to describe it... Yep, an "Iron Curtain" around the US. Sounds good to me.
why do you want to shoot down jets? Do you really think that's a threat?
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
With all the people we go around pissing off, that's the only way I can be sure that my tomato patch is secure from terrorists. A blimp over my neighborhood would only help- I could have a smaller stack of ammo out there, meaning more fresh, juicy tomatoes for me!
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Twice as big as a jumbo jet and soaring twice as high, they may soon be deployed to guard Canada and the United States, scanning for intruders on the Pacific Northwest's long coastline and international border.
To guard against attacks? How is this going to prevent a determined person from putting a truck bomb in front of a federal building, or preventing someone from flying another plane into a building after coming up with yet another ingenious way of taking control of the plane.
When was the last time the US had a missile coming from across the oceans to strike them? NORAD detects just about everything airborne, so they'll know if they're under attack. However this will do nothing to stop someone sitting at the end of a busy airport with a shoulder launched SAM and take out a couple planes.
This is just another ridiculous idea to give the American people a false sense of security. Now don't get me wrong. There may be some merit in these ideas, but I just don't see them. Can someone please enlighten me?
According to the article:
Lockheed already owns veteran blimp maker Goodyear Aerospace Corp. of Akron, Ohio, and has been making airships since 1929. Lockheed now produces "Aerostats," small, remote-controlled, tethered blimps that float 15,000 feet high and are used to monitor the U.S.-Mexican border.
and
Boeing's Unmanned Systems Group and its innovative PhantomWorks research group are working on the concept
So: Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.
Already being done. There are a number of moored balloons already in use for weather radar, and for coastal and border surveillance (e.g. trying to catch drug runners) in the USA.
You not only very obviously didn't bother to read the article, you didn't even bother to click the link. Had you even bothered to glance at the article, you'd have seen a picture of this dirigible's orbit that shows just how valid your argument is.
CargoLifter is agerman company building Zeppelins. The intent is to carry cargo (single pieces of hughe size) to points you can not run them by a truck to. The biggest currently build is a CL 160, and can carry 160 tons, hence its name, of cargo.
CargoLifter and Boing signed a LOI to investigate into using CargoLifters as radar and flight control stations for so called home territory security of the US.
No, I have no link on the web, but I got a letter from CargoLifter some days ago with the info(I'm a shareholder).
CargoLifters are helium driven and have a cruise speed of 100kmh, no idea about the hight as the currently planned lifters should not fly that high. In principle a CL can of course go much higher than a plane.
Regards,
angel'o'phere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Was said to have been sabotage, though nobody will say for sure. I think that hydrogen got an unfair rap as a blimp-fuel-and-filler from that incident (I'm sorry it happened on film, for that reason). Pictures make emotions.
Yes, hydrogen's flammable stuff, but it's lighter than helium and it burns cleanly, so I think blimps should still use it. Yes, there will still be sabotage and terror and all that, but there's no reason not to use hydrogen in lighter-than-air craft, except emotion. IMO.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
It won't work everyone will think there's a football game going on under it and run to it. Oi!
Won't the terrorists notice the big shadow on the ground? Ba da bing!
How can you take a soldier seriously when he sounds like Mickey Mouse(the helium). Doh!
Some kid(ie. American) with a gun will shoot it down. *pop* fzzzzz..... Johnny's Mother: "Johnny stop shooting down those nice soldiers in the balloons they don't like that!" Hary har har!
How can it be taken seriously when everyone make jokes about it? ouch!
*tap tap* Is this thing on?
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
Cruise missiles are not much more than big RC airplanes with a payload. The German "buzz bombs" were a good example - a simple gyro and altimeter, a bomb, and enough fuel to make it over to London.
Think of this with commodity hardware.
The nav system is not too difficult - something to take the input and correct the course and altitude. A GPS with a COM port and a Palm Pilot makes this really easy (though mine are too clunky to actually put into anything that does not float).
Power plant - don't think jet, think rotax. Since you are not looking for FAA certification, you would be surprised what you can stuff on an airframe. VW bug engines are used in a number of homebuilt projects.
Payload. No clue, but I'm sure someone could manage.
Anyhow, it is probably a mute issue. Cruse missiles are intended to execute an attack from a "safe distance" to prevent retaliation and also obscure where you are attacking from. Way too much harpoon in college... If the terrorist keep up with there current track record, they will just have someone drive/fly the payload in person. Those cruise missiles often have another name - kamikaze.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Quite simply, it would watch for people who are crossing the boarder at non-designated boarder crossings. The boarder between Canada and the US, from what I recall, is highly unguarded, and allows for basically anyone to pass over with no real effort. Furthermore, I believe any Canadian can waltz through legitimate checkpoints whenever they want, as long as they're not carring prohibited materials.
Thus, anyone who intentionally avoids those checkpoints may be assumed to be transporting prohibited materials or prohibited people from Canada into the US. Legitimate people who wished to visit the US would cross through the boarder crossing, the 'terrorists' would skip those checkpoints, and these blimps would be better suited to spot such activity from high above for long periods of time.
This operates under the assumption that Canadian customs processes aren't secure enough for the US, and thus we need to double check their work. For example, Canadians may freely come and go to Cuba, while members of the US may not. Thus, it stands to reason, that it'd be easier for a Cuban terrorist to enter Canada, and then sneak across the boarder to the US with his vile intentions.
Of course, this does very little to stop new terrorist attacks, however the US political mindset right now seems to be 'any minor improvement should be done.' Flying blimps across the boarder decreases the chance of terrorists by a fraction of a fraction of a percent? Do it. Running around declaring people you don't like an Axis of Evil and invading them might stop the family of a suicide bomber from getting some money, go for it. I guess they thing every minor amount will eventually add up.
Besides, it obscures all the ugly SKY I never liked looking at anyway.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
The article said that these things would only have a structure for supporting cargo, which, I'm guessing would be hanging about where a blimp's gondola is, so I guess the original assumption about the marshmallow might be true. (I have no idea why the author of he article kept referring to them as dirigibles...)
I'm pretty sure that if you plowed any sort of non-rigid blimp into any sort of skyscraper, the blimp would do a minimum of damage before being punctured - though if it managed to break some windows first, the occupants of the building might be running around talking in squeaky voices from inhaling al that helium, which would make for some very confused 911 operators I'm sure...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
I think you haven't been reading about the work that the Zeppelin company has done recently with the Zeppelin NT project.
By applying modern aerospace technology to airship designs, the Zeppelin NT requires far less ground crew handling, less work load for the pilot, and the airship itself has far stronger structure to better withstand higher velocity winds.
That's a blimp, not a rigid airship.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
> Television decides for us, tells us what to think about the matter,
> and then we just shrug and go to work.
Television is not artificially intelligent. Someone is deciding what message gets delivered via television. You are deciding whether to receive the message.
Some of "us" use a few brain cycles to understand this as we choose, watch, and interpret. Others of "us" use a switch on the box. Still others of "us" use our choice of whether to have the box at all.
> I think there needs to be a citizen's veto system....
> If you, the citizen, feel as though a program is a useless shill and waste of money,
> you simply click the check box, and submit your veto.
That would be a sword with two edges. Don't you think that, for any proposal, however meritorious, someone will object? If you'd like online privacy, more honest government, or even more honest television, I think you would find that there are plenty of people who would use your "online veto" to quash your vision's chances of realization.
Alternatively, you could count up all the vetos and anti-vetos. But wait...someone already invented that system two or three centuries ago. It's called "democracy."
The trouble is, someone is always dissatisfied with the outcome. The best you can do is try to satisfy more people than you dissatisfy, and bring about a balance where people can live and work together without killing each other very often. That's an even older invention called "civilization."
(Don't forget that it's up to you to remember to turn off your TV when you leave for work; have you noticed that it only tells you to that you should stay tuned?)
...and I don't intend this as a sick joke about the fate of the Hindenburg.
I don't know why anyone hasn't considered covering the outer skin of one of these "new technology" Zeppelins in photovoltaic cells. Think about it. The engines don't need to put out much torque...they are used for steering, not lift. They could be high-efficiency electric or hybrid engines.
On sunny days, the ship could fly completely on solar-generated electricity, and on less-than-sunny days it could be charged from the ground, or surplus energy generated during earlier flights on sunny days. Fuel cells could be a third source of energy if the other two fail.
Maybe it's not 100% free energy...TANSTAAFL is still a fundamental law of nature...but it's a possibility that should be examined. At the very least it would be a "neat hack."
(Why, oh why didn't they use a different phrase to describe the newness of their aircraft...my association with NT is with the Blue Screen Of Death and crashing. Zeppelin XP? ZeppeLinux?)
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
The government has the advantage of expert testimony, review processes, studies, etc. to determine the viability of any expenditure. Joe sixpack does not (yet).
If you did let society devolve to referenda on each expenditure, we would wind up with subsidzed pro wrestling pay-per-views and a two day work week.
We've got at least a century to go before the common man can be expected to make rational informed decisions on arbitrary matters.
It has got to be cheaper to have small, unmanned robot planes flying around potrolling than putting a bunch of over-paid union clowns into a big, fat blimp.
Is it really that hard to send TV signals from an unmanned robot plane to a control room in some low cost of living area?
Table-ized A.I.
there's a durigible hangar in sunnyvale, california. It's quite large, you can see it from the bay bridge, which is 15 - 20 miles away (that's a guess). It used to belong to the navy, but now it belongs to NASA.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Not so much cornered as simply were in possession of most natural sources. Practically all He production is a by-product of natural gas processing, and it seems most sources of gas are in the US and Russia. The US simply chose not to share He with the emerging Nazi regime in Germany, especially given Germany's leading expertise in airship technology.
BORDER! BORDER! BORDER!
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Field Artillery lends dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.
Don't forget: "God fights on the side with the best Artillery." -- Napoleon III
From one artilleryman to another.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
The only major zeppelin disaster was the Hindenburg, and it did not explode, it caught on fire during mooring due to static electricity (a known effect) combined with the solid rocket fuel they'd used as a paint (unknown to them).
Obviously the Hydrogen burned once it started leaking, but it was not the cause.
Furthermore, had it been helium, the bags still would have ruptured from the initial fire, and it still would have crashed, badly.
And a lot of people walked away from it anyway.
Anchored zeppelins (aerostats) are already in use in many places.
What's wrong is that a zeppelin can stay up for WEEKS on little fuel. it only needs fuel to menouver and for power, not to stay in the air. A plane needs service constantly, and a chopper even moreso.
Considering the girth of the National Guard, I think we can take some comfort in those words.
To correct your first impression of me: I'm an 11H being forced against my will to chief a how. Much better living conditions here, though.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Ahh I see :)
How the hell did that happen?
I used to be (actually, the Reserver PERSCOM reminded me that I still am) a 13F.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Yeah, I know that, and you know that... I'm trying to burn karma here, and noise up some of the zealots. It's harder than you'd think, this trolling lark. Maybe I should read up on it.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
I know exactly what you mean.
Good luck.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Since then, blimps by the 70's, it took about $1k of electricity . .
Anyway, before the Evil Empire ruined the fun by suddenly going out of business, the Navy was already looking at launching new ones for sub patrol. The P3 could stay on station 12 hours (16 if needed); it just followed a sub around once one was found. The blimp could be sent out for a week at a time (or more; the limit was really for the crew). But before they built these, the Soviet's forfeited . . .
Nonetheless, they'll use helium, not hydrogen.
One flaming arrow . . .
:)
hawk
I am really sick and tired of hearing people say "Hydrogen = Hindenberg = Bad!". If you dress yourself up in rocket fuel or thermite and then scuff around on shag carpet, which is basically what the Hindenberg was, you are just asking for it. Your blimp could be filled with cotton candy and you'd still go up in flames. Furthermore, it is really stupid of you to complain about the flamability of H2 while at the same time putting stuff that is by weight many times as energetic into your car. And may I point out that despite the spectacularity with which the Hindenberg blew up, nearly two thirds of the people on board survived. I would just love to see a landing airplane have its fuel vented right into open flames at 100 feet and crash into the ground and still boast that kind of survival rate.
One flaming arrow . . . .
Will what? Blow up an airship? Not likely! And these things will be running higher up than any private, commercial, and most military planes can reach. And why not 'one stick of dynamite planted on a railroad track'? Or 'one carbomb on a suspension bridge'? Or 'one heat-seeking missile outside an airport'? Name one activity that can't be made fatal by some trivial attack at just the right time and place. Get some perspective, people.
Dyolf Knip
Actually, the Hindenburg was originally designed for He operation and only switched to H use when the US refused delivery. Its initial planned payload capability was less than what it ended up being (with H).