Northrop Grumman wins contract to build US Army's long-endurance hybrid airship
By Laura June 
posted June 21st 2010 12:11PM
posted June 21st 2010 12:11PM
posted June 21st 2010 12:11PM
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20,000 miles must be a typo - thats above the ISS - since thats 200 miles above sea level...
Reminds me of that Archer episode on Cartoon Network...
http://www.hulu.com/watch/128958/archer-skytanic
@nitrog7
Correction, it was on FX.
Couldn't they just shoot it down with an AK47 or something?
@FlyersPh9 Way to high to do that this is almost the height of a jumbo jet
20 000 miles????
I do hope they didnt use Hydrogen to power that thing! it will be like a deja vu of the explosions of the blimps in the war!
Why are so many people hating on this? It does what any surveillance plane or satellite does, except it gets to hover for huge periods of time and doesn't need to be in freaking orbit, respectively. Why are people even remotely worried about it being shot down? Who in the world wants AND is able to shoot down this thing? And you don't need to carry any more than 2500 lbs for what this thing is apparently being used for.
Sure, it isn't very fast, but that's why it's called a "long-endurance hybrid airship". Just because it doesn't satisfy your "look at me I can look up planes on Wikipedia" doesn't mean it won't do its job better than anything else out there right now. If it were up to you guys, we'd have Blackbirds and actual X-Wings in charge of all our surveillance.
@guruboy Good statement. I don't think that they understand that this is to find and track movements of enemy personnel. It's kinda hard to do that when your fuel supply only allows you to do so for a few hours. This will be able to track for days if needed which will result in less man hours in ground troops having to do so.
Less ground pounding looking for the enemy means less personnel needed to maintain the fight. Also faster reaction times to attacking and killing/capturing the enemy to end this thing.
why does that design make me think of a female's body section below the waist and above the knee....
Yet another poorly written article from Laura June. I am now certain the only reason she works for Engadget is because she's married to Topolsky, because clearly her skills as a writer are severely lacking.
Now all it needs is some lasers and it would be the coolest floating death machine ever.
Oh the humanity!
@Psyclotr0n
whoops already done in the first thread
iFail
2500 pounds? Really? These things are the size of football fields.
Here's a vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVNV-FFUOnc
I wonder who will be the first blimp ACE?
Come on, these airships are not going to be used to move cargo. They are surveillance ship, flying so high up in the sky that they will not be detected visually by a bunch of low-tech equipped soldiers in one of the poorest countries in the world. It will be cheaper to operate, and probably does surveillance in some situations better than planes could since it can "hover" in one place. Even if a enemy soldier saw them, very few weapons could shoot it down, due to the altitude, and the accuracy problems they will have at those distances.
This thing better have a bagillion countermeasure systems on board with a ticker tape parade worth of chaff, otherwise enemies are going to turn taking this thing down into a drinking game.
@John Doe
Countermeasures against what? Some cave dwellers with AK-47s? You'd need a decent SAM missile to take that down...
@John Doe
Countermeasures against what? Some cave dwellers with AK-47s? You'd need a decent SAM missile to take that down...
Broadsword to base, rate of speed insufficient for interception, recommend we get out and walk.
These things have been flying around over sparsely-inhabited areas in the western U.S. for years. They are black, and at night the only thing that gives them away is when they block the stars. Spooky stuff.
@Ed T: The reported characteristics of those don't seem to match a blimp. And yeah, totally spooky.
i might have found a flaw in their plan. Don't high-altitude winds blow considerably faster than 34 mph?
@GGG That's why its going 34mph, everything else is dedicated to just moving against the wind. O_0
@John Doe
if they are doing fixed point surveillance they could just tether it like a kite and not use any engine at all. Then it wouldn't matter how high the wind was.
@bombastinator
And ¿how do you exactly plan to do that? i mean, to do that, you'll need to lift a steel cable that would be about 4 miles long. Such a cable would weight a lot more than the 2.500 lbs this thing can lift, even with no payload at all.
Anyway, wind at that altitude is probably not so much of an issue. The air is pretty thin up there, so even fast winds would not push that thing too hard. Not as hard as they would at sea level, at least. Also, the thing looks quite aerodinamic, and it has turbines on both the front and the rear side, so keeping it stable all by itself shouldn't be a problem
@bombastinator
a 20000ft tether line weights more than 2500 lb
I thought they got James Cameron's Memo. Shame.
so america's future hinges on a flying ass crack
I hope the operator of the first airship to be named Cid. That would be awesome!
That concept needs more guns. This thing could be like an AC-130 on steroids that could linger over a target area almost indefinitely.
@Twist
in case you missed that part, this thing can't carry more than 2.500lbs of payload (less than you can carry on a regular pickup).
So unless you find a way to develop a cannon that can hit a target 4 miles away with a significant punch, and weights less than 2.500lbs (ammo included), this thing will still be surveillance-only.
I believe this would be an amazing weapon against terrorists.
Since they don't have any-way to shoot them down at such high altitudes....and practically airships can stay still at one place( in comparison with satellites and uavs)....this would make an excellent observation platform.
p.s=500million is relatively cheap.We are talking for 3 ships and the payment for the whole project....
@ronic
its basically a sitting duck.
terrorist boss ...."can someone figure out how to shoot down an irritating footbal feild sized white blob at 20k ft"
terrorist worker... "yes sir , right sir , im googlin it right now sir"
For an airship the size of a football field, you'd think it would be able to carry more than 2500 pounds.
I can't for the life of me think of a better way to spend all that money
*cough* Hindenburg *cough*
All hail the giant vagina of the sky!! hail!
ohmygawditsslowlybombingus!!! RUN!!
@Cy Starkman if you think some IED or C4 could get almost 4mi straight up in the air, you should really take a look at this awesome bridge I've got for sale.
IF it makes the 2011 date, at the speed of 35mph, it will get to afghanistan by the time the next president claims victory over the war.
Must be a bitch to inflate at the gas station...where's the air valve?
I'm tired of the government spending so much money on arms when the rest of us need help so badly.
looks like a flying target-how could you miss?
It's a freakin blimp. Ask Good Year and Met Life to fly over for exclusive video footage. Saves the tax payer half a billion, and better coverage due to higher quality video that is used for football games.
The US government needs to stop spending my money on shit like this. Take away the entire military budget and spend it on food, medical, and energy research.
Was looking up another blog concerning the airship and someone brought up a very good point. Rest of the blog members are hoping it doesn't go nearby the Hindu Kush 500 mile mountain range. I wiki'd it and saw that the highest point is Tirich Mir which is at 25,289 ft located at one of the regions in Pakistan. At that height a person with a SAM launcher could wait and reach out to touch it. Personally I think even though at 20,000 ft AQ doesn't have the current capability of taking it down I wouldn't underestimate them. Some clever AQ member could try to come up with a multi-stage rocket or something to be able to reach it or ask a black market weapons dealer to come up with a weapon.
It has a large surface are, and its up in the sky. This would have been a good opportunity to develop solar energy membrane and use electric motors to keep it in position.Rather than the traditional fuel/engine combo.
This is ultimately doomed to be yet another expensive airship failure.
the world needs zeppelins for military uses again.
35 MPH?
In some parts of the world, this isn't even thrust enough to keep position at 20.000 ft.