Old Airlift Vehicle Concept Made New

starexplorer writes "LiveScience is reporting on an early conceptual design of The Walrus the DOD's new planned 'very large airlift vehicle'." Could the concept of a 'war-balloon' really be gaining favor again?

Comments

At Last!!!

[ackthpt]

An airship that will look like the budget that funds it!

I've been a huge fan of airships after reading up on them, but this thing will positively scream "TARGET" (not the chain store) to every radical nut with a shoulder launch missile. It will also move rather slowly.

Perhaps a good choice for moving materiel between safe locations, but not something you'd fly over the Middle East any time soon.

Re:At Last!!!

[brohan]

Also, this airship isn't built for hardiness at all. From what I can get from the article it will have many points of faliure. I don't see how a well placed photon torpedoes down a shaft can bring the whole death star^W^W Walrus down.

Re:At Last!!!

[Rei]

Helium aircraft are a lot harder to shoot down than you might imagine. People are so used to party balloons that they seem to get the idea that helium aircraft failures would decompress as rapidly. Not even close - in addition to having more resilient skin, the volume rises proportional to the radii cubed, while the surface area proportional to the radii squared. I.e., there's a lot more gas to dissipate compared to the size of the hole. Then factor in that it's under lower pressure, and you get very favorable numbers. Small holes do very little to large airships.

On the subject of missiles: I wonder how effective traditional homing mechanisms would be on a craft like this, with its potential for unusual engine positionings, visual profile, and probably an odd, disproportionate radar signature. Given its great size and slow speed, if they had effective countermeasures on it it might almost be worth painting it in Dazzle camouflage.

Re:Protection Methods???

[greulich]

The Goodyear blimps come home with bullet holes all of the time. An airship is a lot more difficult to bring down than you would think.

As long as you don't coat it in rocket fuel of course... ;)

Heavy lift aircraft don't usually do combat drops

[Shivetya]

except from altitude and even then they are rarely if ever deployed in heavily contested areas. Most of the time they require large airstrips which in itself implies control over land and air of the region.

What it does offer is many possiblities for not just military operations. If these things pan out in efficiency you can bet UPS and FED Ex would want them. Let alone the possibilities of flying cruise ships!

FWIW, anything is a target for a terrorist, though preference is giving to things that don't shoot back.