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Oil-Spotting Blimp Arrives In the Gulf
GAMP writes "A Navy blimp to assist oil skimming operations will be arriving to the Gulf Coast Wednesday evening, according to the Unified Command Joint Information Center. 'The airship will operate relatively close to shore, primarily supporting skimmers to maximize their effectiveness,' said US Coast Guard Capt. Kevin Sareault."
That's nice, but will reporters be allowed on board?
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
In other news, a cigar-smoking middle aged man wearing pilots goggles and brandishing a halberd was arrested early this evening. Police say that they had to arrest the man after complaints of him swinging his weapon around in the street shouting "they stole my baby!"
This story and more at 11:00 PM.
Why does this seem like something that would appear in the plot of a Simpsons or South Park episode?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
What happens if the blimp comes within 65 vertical feet of a beach when passing over it? Is everyone there guilty of a class D felony?
But is this really an effective use of taxpayer money?
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
Heh well I suppose you have a point... wouldn't it be nice if we could do a swap? Have Bush handle this disaster and have Obama handle 9-11?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Heck, the spill has been going on for over seventy days! What is wrong with the 'mighty' USA?
The article doesn't mention that this is the MZ-3. It is currently assigned to Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS-1), based out of NAS Patuxent River, MD. It was being tested in Yuma, AZ until its recent assignment to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup efforts. Its crew are contractors from Integrated Systems Solutions, Inc. -- they have a website, but it's too crappy to bother linking here. The crew includes Commanding Officer Cmdr. Chris Janke, Burt Race, a retired Navy pilot, Chief Pilot Peter Buckley, second pilot Russell Mills, and up to five other positions available.
For those of you wondering if reporters are going to be on this blimp -- probably not. It is not a civilian vessel, and space for personnel is at a premium. As well, as a fully vetted and operating Navy aircraft, it also contains military communications equipment. Very little in the way of surveillance equipment has been fitted on the airframe; Weight is a major concern for such a craft.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I mean, spotting the oil is nice, but burning it away with lasers would be way cooler.
Obama's doing a great job! At this very moment, Sir Paul McCartney is readying his Yellow Submarine to help clean up the mess the BP Meanies left to wash up on the shores of Obamaland.
WE CAN DO IT!!
"It's in the water," says the blimp.
Well hey I feel a lot safer now, doesn't every one else?
People will read that as a troll but it's true, really. Bush is much better suited to deal with oil problems than national security. (he owns multiple oil companies)
The airship is more economical and can stay in the air for 12 hours, longer than helicopters or airplanes already in use,
so the Also,
The airship is more economical and can stay in the air for 12 hours
What?!? What's preventing it to stay longer?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Bush is much better suited to deal with oil problems than national security. (he owns multiple oil companies)
Right. Oil companies are great at dealing with spills aren't they? I think Moe, Curly and Shemp could've done better than BP has.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
To see the oil. Its all over the shore. Waste of money.
If it ain't broke, DON'T fix it.
It leaks oil -among other things- like a sieve.
"The slow-moving airship will be arriving at the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport in Mississippi after more than a month of travel from Yuma, Arizona where it's based."
Couldn't they pack it up and fly or drive it there? Guess there wasn't any hurry to get there.
Well, they would've succeeded at sticking their finger in the hole, and having some hilarious hijinks about it getting stuck.
First of all I'm going to take a precautionary WOOSH over my own head about not getting the joke.
I don't think being a manager would entitle him to knowing details about operating an oil rig, hell even a few BP execs don't know that.
What if Bush would be the usual self and fucks up everything? With all the connections he's got in the oil industry and fucking Dick fucking Cheney, wouldn't he just be more gullible to BP's promises -- let the free market decide or such bullshit and let all the things be settled in court on individual basis or via class action. Would the government pressure BP to set up 20 bn escrow fund?
There's also additional irony in your statement, as republicans are always(say, since as far back as Reagan) have been perceived as being good on security and now you suggesting that a republican politician should probably handle a crisis that doesn't involve blowing shit up and/or killing people.
Oh well, sending a blimp to make more oil spots in the gulf won't make matters significantly worse I suppose. I think BP will applaud this effort -- at least now they can blame the government for creating all the oil spots.
It floors me to see people who are supposedly intelligent talking like this. More amazing is the user who thought that owning oil companies somehow makes a difference in how this situation is handled. I can own a hundred cars, it doesn't make me a fucking mechanic.
Keep buying into the concept that your leaders are somehow on your side. They'll keep shoveling shit as long as you keep eating it. You are the enslaved tax base that they simply need to keep in line. The betterment of your quality of life has little in the way of payback in the long run. In fact, working like a dog just to croak at the age of 57 only stands to further their bottom line, Republican and Democrat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6_AwzuK0zU
It floors me to see people who are supposedly intelligent talking like this.
Boy, I know how you feel.
Woosh.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
at this thing...it doesnt really exude confidence
why aren't we sending these? with much more advanced optics and sensor systems, and the ability to operate autonomously
Good people go to bed earlier.
Why does this seem like something that would appear in the plot of a Simpsons or South Park episode?
Because they're not really trying to clean up the oil leak.
They've rejected the best available technology for cleaning up the oil because the water it returns, in situ, isn't quite pure enough for EPA regulations.
Instead, they're attempting to pump the Gulf of Mexico into ships and cart it to land, for storage and later processing.
It's so absurd it can't be due to ignorance.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
First action - apologize to Bin Laden!
What if the blimp get flamed up and crash to the oil spill? Disaster!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
But is this really an effective use of taxpayer money?
Blimps and airships are pretty cheap to operate for most things. The Navy has a long history with LTA (lighter than air) craft, using them more prominently than perhaps even Imperial Germany, who really popularized the Zeppelin. The Navy had something of a golden age with their airships, with 4 of their Zeppelin-class airships being commissioned as ships of the line, the same as surface warships. Two of them ... the USS Akron and the USS Macon were actually Zeppelin aircraft carriers. They both carried a squadron of Curtis Sparrowhawk fighter planes, which would attach to the mothership via a skyhook. The carriers even had a hangar bay inside the airships, and at 800 ft long, there were nearly as long as modern surface supercarriers.
End the end, it wasn't expense that ended the age of Navy airships, it was safety. Most were destroyed in catastrophic accidents, and they were vulnerable to sudden, violent weather. Billy Mitchell... arguably father of the modern air force... was court martialed in part because he used the airship crashes in his publicity campaign against Naval aviation (which has left a legacy of bitterness between the two services that continues to this day).
The Navy continued to use LTA craft into WWII though, especially as spotter balloons, and even continued to use smaller airships into the 50's for things like anti-submarine patrol. I'm rather glad to see them get back into the LTA business, as you can do a lot with airships very inexpensively. Make them remote-piloted drones, and you can send them up for days at a time as radar AEW craft, reconnaissance craft, or even as remote weapons platforms. Airships... both manned and unmanned.... probably still make more sense as anti-sub platforms than land-based fixed wing aircraft.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The fuel gets close to running out after 12 hours. It's really bad news to run out of fuel. Without engine power you have no steerageway on the airship and she is out of control vertically and horizontally. Also there is then no way to control the envelope pressure, which has to be kept between delicate limits. Little things like that. There is no real provision for crew rest, meals, and such like. This is a really tiny airship. It is only about 1/40 the size of the Hindenburg.
The largest airships of the 1930s, including the US Navy Akron and Macon, could stay out for one week without refuelling. They had proper facilities for the crew, who stood watches like on a surface ship.
It bears pointing out that the cane toad was imported from outside the Australian ecosystem, whereupon it became a runaway success as an invasive species. Meanwhile, the bacteria mentioned here are already present as a natural part of the Gulf ecosystem, and they thus present zero risk of invasiveness.
Mind you, I'm not saying that guarantees there'll be no problems -- I certainly don't know enough to say one way or the other. But we can be reasonably sure that the oil-munching bacteria in the Gulf are safer than the cane toad, simply because they're already there.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
It appears that the unions are not oil-soluble. Perhaps if we add more detergent to the mix?
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
That saying works so well to describe American politics in large part because the nose being cut off generally belongs to someone else.
This list could go on and on, but the basic idea is that, so long as the ones making the decisions aren't actually accountable and aren't themselves directly inconvenienced, they couldn't really give a rat's ass how messy or slipshod their proposed solution might be. So long as it keeps the gravy train running, it's all good, as far as they're concerned.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
A dutch marine vessel was not allowed to help during the Kathrine/New Orleans disaster.
The US government is very scared of allowing any foreign aid. The US survives on its people believing that they are the best. Seeing other countries flags displayed dealing with stuff the US itself can't dealwith could upset that.
It might get people to question whether they voted for the right guy or even worse, the right economic policiy. Nothing scares BOTH US parties more then the idea that some Americans might start think Socialism might not be totally evil.
Part of it is also the American attitude of "can do". It works when things are fine but fails when the shit hits the fan. That requires a more EU lookout "life is bleak and we are going to die horribly". Why do ALL EU countries have superior disaster equipment? Because we know we are doomed. The dutch dikes are better then the New Orleans ones because no dutch person believes god has blessed this country (From the weather he seems to be pissing on us most of the time).
What is odd that while the US goverment is always very reluctant to receive aid, they hand it out readily. When the dutch dikes did break in 1953, US helicopters were quick to arrive and start helping people.
US, learn to accept that accepting help is NOT a sign of weakness. Your children won't start smoking pot because some dutch engineers are walking your shores and thinking gay marriage is peoples own affair.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
BP plc hasn't stood for British Petroleum since at least 1998 when it merged with Amoco. In fact, there's nearly as many shares in the US as there is in the UK (39% vs 40%).
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
High powered visual software powered by geosynchronous satellites--CHECK Nuclear powered battle group that can stay at say almost indefinitely---CHECK Vertical Take-off and Landing Stealth fighter jets---------CHECK hot air balloon technology from the 19th century, wait what?!
Well, I hear they were going to have some lasers, but they're getting sued by Lucas for looking too much like some lightsaber handles he had in mind for a future movie ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Yep, this Administration has been right on top of things since day 1.
How many days did it take to identify a long term, aerial, on-station presence as a good idea to coordinate efforts from above?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-7K-ZPaLa8 Check out this sea flight view of the gulf. This is what the blimp will see
http://gizmodo.com/5547548/the-gulf-disaster-video-that-bp-doesnt-want-you-to-see Maybe they should send some subs for more pics like this?
http://gizmodo.com/5542969/gulf-oil-disaster-looks-very-scary-says-astronaut Hey, we already have space pics.....the blimp is really going to help
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ALAvTeRMYc&feature=related Ex Shell CEO saying "Its not going to stop"
http://www.helium.com/items/1864136-how-the-ultimate-bp-gulf-disaster-could-kill-millions Now this is an interesting theory. The probability of course is unknown. Any thoughts from geologists who are experts on the gulf sea floor or with enough knowledge they could call themselves an expert witness, might shed some light. And, well Sarah Palin is calling for "divine intervention" on her twitter feed....damn if only she were president things would really be moving along....hah.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Sats up there can do an even better job than the blimp, especially NASA and NSA ones we don't even know about. Blimp is publicity only...jeff
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Err, no, they can't, actually. Sats have much worse imaging capability and have interference from weather, not to mention only periodic imaging capabilities. (Either you're talking about something in geo, in which case it's quite far away, or leo, in which case it's only going to pass over the site for picture taking every so often.)
Airships are actually quite good for this sort of task.
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
Do you mean "good at dealing with oil problems" from an oil company's perspective? If so, then maybe you're right.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Hey cool! They’ve got a blimp!
Wouldn't this be a excellent test / PR for those high-endurance UAVs they're always trying to sell to the military? /.'s had stories about unmanned blimps or "stratellites" in the recent past.
Hell,
Oh, I see, there's no money for environmental monitoring, just for blowing up the brown peeples. Economic stimulus my ass.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I know it's popular to criticize BP at every juncture, and I agree with you that the leak itself should have never happened, but their response to the spill has been about as good as anyone could have done.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Of course, the Stooges would do a better job.....we have the video to prove it. The episode is called "A Plumbing We Will Go" ...
http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/comedy/watch/v19300171xgF4NR2J
Your "fair share" is NOT in my wallet.
but their response to the spill has been about as good as anyone could have done.
My apologies if you or someone you care about works for BP, but Bull-f*ckin-Sh:t! (excuse my tone, but I'm just a little teed off about it!). You (and Joe Barton) can kiss my oil-splotched arse. I now have to live with that crap washing up on my property and watch as what used to be vibrant with life become a cesspool.
Here we are, 80 days out from the disaster and things are worse than ever.
You're right of course, this should have never happened. BP should have never drilled, and never been ALLOWED to drill that deep without an absolutely foolproof plan to stop the leak if it occurred, AND a plan to quickly clean up any oil that might have leaked, no matter how much. How about a plan for when the BOP failed? It's not like they are 100% foolproof - studies have shown that they fail about 40% of the time! (http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/30/news/companies/blowout_preventer_bop/index.htm)
It's pretty obvious these plans did not exist (no, the cut-and-pasted Alaska plan doesn't count).
You mean to tell me that BP, with it's $5.5B per quarter profits, couldn't spend a dime on research for containment and cleanup? That's right, they didn't spend a dime on it - zero, zilch, nada. Their budget for this type of research was $0!
Ok, so we know BP wasn't prepared to deal with this. That's history now, so let's focus on what happened after the disaster.
The oil spill was 50 miles out into the Gulf. It took nearly a month for the oil to reach the shores of Louisiana.
What did BP do during that period of time to try and keep the oil from approaching the shore? Lay out booms along the shoreline? Is that the best they could come up with? Why did they make no effort to contain it around the site of the disaster? Couldn't they afford to spend a small percentage of their $22B a year profits on rounding up all the skimmer vessels they could and keep the damage to a minimum? Did they have to pump millions of gallons of extremely toxic disbursants into the Gulf to try and distribute the oil into the water as tiny particles, when all that did was give the illusion (i.e. PR move) that it wasn't as bad as it was? All that did was make cleanup more difficult, distribute the oil throughout the water column, and ensure that not only the surface water would be affected, but everything from the seafloor to the surface is rendered lifeless.
I'm sorry for the long rant (actually, no, I'm not), but I don't think you know a damn thing about what has happened to my home (or maybe you do, but your loyalties lie with BP rather than what used to be one of the most beautiful places on earth - IMHO).
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Quick thinking there slick. Maybe in another couple months you can start sending some equipment to stop the leak.