Airship and Lighter-than-air news

[buglerbilly]

New thread...........

Chinese See Intel, Surveillance Role for Airships

By WENDELL MINNICK

Published: 31 May 2010

TAIPEI - Chinese academic, commercial and military institutions are aggressively studying the use of lighter-than-air (LTA) platforms for a variety of missions, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, special operations, transpor-tation over rugged terrain and as communications relays.

A recent unclassified report issued by the U.S. National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), "Current and Potential Applications of Chinese Aerostats (Airships)," addresses these issues.

Issued March 23 by NASIC's Open Source Intelligence Analysis and Production Flight, the paper is the first known unclassified report on China's military LTA research.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is looking at the development of airships and aerostats for a variety of military missions, said Richard Fisher, vice president of the Washington-based International Assessment and Strategy Center. The PLA already uses aerostats for ground force exercises.

"The implication is that the PLA has radar that could perform ground mapping as well as air-search missions," he said.

Though efforts have so far involved small platforms, the PLA is funding development of larger aerostats and airships able to operate at strategic altitudes of 10,000 meters or higher, which would allow surveillance of Taiwan from China, he said.

"For the PLA, having a networked formation of large airships over the East China Sea or South China Sea could offer the potential of an inner-space satellite system that could operate for a week at a time, conducting a range of surveillance, navigation assistance and communication relay missions, especially useful should an adversary attack China's outer-space satellites," he said.

The NASIC report concurs. China is considering the use of "super-altitude airships" for early warning detection to supplement existing early warning networks. Normally an altitude of 15 kilometers and higher is considered "super altitude," the report said.

"More Chinese scientists and researchers have become engaged in airship research, especially in the area of military applications," the NASIC report said.

"Because of its vertical takeoff and landing, and fixed-point air stationary capabilities, load capacity, low noise and low energy consumption, it is cost-effective and is very valuable for reconnaissance and surveillance, emergency communications," the report said.

Defense News found more than 30 Chinese academic, corporate and military institutions and facilities on the Internet conducting research on LTAs, including the Aircraft Flight Test Technology Institute, Air Force Engineering University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity, Beijing University, Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity, Donghua University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National University of Defense Technology, Unit 94362 and Unit 94201 of the PLA in Shandong, and Wuhan Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Chinese companies producing airships and aerostats are openly promoting them as surveillance and special operations platforms on company brochures and on their websites.

The Suzhou Fangzhou Aeromodeling Co. produces an "investigative security surveillance airship" for use by the police or the military. The Hua Jiao Airship Co. makes the HJ-3000 airship that it advertises as a surveillance, minesweeper and special operations platform.

"Equipped with special facilities, it can carry special military forces to fight against terrorists, riots, forest fires and hostage rescue," the company Web site said.

The Beijing Buaa Lonsan Aircraft Co. produces the LS-S900 airship for use as a surveillance platform. It can be equipped with a camera, infrared thermal imaging unit, radar and a signal relay.

The Aerospace Life-Support Industries Co, produces the FKY-1, which can handle small missions of up to four personnel and carry a variety of sensor payloads.

Not to be confused with the FKY-1, the Chinese Academy of Surveying and China Special Vehicle Research Institute developed the FKC-1 helium unmanned airship with a "practical ceiling" of 1,000-plus meters and capable of surveillance missions by the military or police, in particular for "counter-separatist" campaigns, Fisher said.

"A poster at the 2008 Zhuhai Air Show illustrated this airship conducting battlefield surveillance as part of a network of unmanned aircraft and unmanned helicopters," he said. The company has released Internet imagery of the FKC-2, roughly 30 percent larger, but without any performance data listed.

The NASIC report notes there are increased calls in China calls for greater research and development of LTAs in the future.

"The Chinese will have an important opportunity for their airships to be on par with international standards in 2010 or 2020." ■

E-mail: wminnick@defensenews.com

[buglerbilly]

India To Open Competition for New Aerostats

By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI

Published: 28 May 2010 16:49

NEW DELHI - India, which bought three radar-equipped aerostats from Rafael in 2005, has thrown open the competition for a new batch of three to the global market.

Last month, Indian Air Force officials asked the Defence Ministry to prepare a request for information, which is to be issued in the next two to three months to BAE Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rosoboronexport and Thales, ministry sources said. The aerostats must be able to carry a payload of 2,400 kilograms to 15,000 feet for 28 days at a stretch, including radars that can spot aircraft and missiles up to 30,000 feet and out to 300 kilometers.

The Air Force intends to integrate the aerostat radars with the three Airborne Warning and Control System AWACS being purchased from Israel.

The balloon-borne radars can virtually act as AWACS themselves, an Air Force official said.

India has deployed its three aerostats along the Pakistani border in the state of Punjab.

The country eventually seeks to own 13, the Air Force official, said.

The payload would consist of air and surface surveillance radars, electronic intelligence and communication intelligence gear, and V/UHF radio telephony equipment and Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system.

The Navy also wants to buy aerostats for coastal security.

The new batch will be bought at a competitive price, said analyst Mahindra Singh.

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Army Awards Lockheed Martin $142 Million for Additional Persistent Threat Detection Aerostat Systems



14:21 GMT, June 8, 2010 AKRON, Ohio | Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] received a $142 million award from the U.S. Army to begin production of additional Persistent Threat Detection Systems (PTDS) to support coalition forces.

The Department of Defense is making a concerted effort to rapidly increase the resources available to help warfighters detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs). PTDS is a tethered aerostat-based system, capable of staying aloft for weeks at a time, that provides round-the-clock surveillance of broad areas. The Army began using the system in 2004.

“The PTDS delivers real-time surveillance and actionable intelligence to our troops to help them in life-threatening situations,” said Stephanie Hill, Integrated Defense Technologies vice president at Lockheed Martin Mission Systems & Sensors. "These eyes in the sky protect soldiers and civilians and let the hostiles know that they are constantly being watched.”

The PTDS is equipped with multi-mission sensors to provide long endurance intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications in support of the United States military and its allies.

The Army's firm-fixed-price undefinitized contract action enables Lockheed Martin to begin work on the systems while final contract terms are negotiated. The latest systems are in addition to the previous ones the Army ordered from Lockheed Martin in the past six months. The majority of the work on the systems will be performed in Akron, OH, with additional work in Cape Canaveral, FL, Moorestown, NJ and Owego, NY.

Filled with helium, PTDS provides low-cost, continuous communications and persistent surveillance capabilities not possible with other types of manned and unmanned aircraft. Attached by a high-strength tether to a re-locatable mooring system, PTDS carries different types of surveillance equipment to conduct multiple missions.

[buglerbilly]

Blimps could replace aircraft in freight transport, say scientists

Helium-powered ships could be carrying freight – and even passengers – in as little as a decade's time

Juliette Jowit guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 June 2010 15.53 BST


An example of the future of airship freight carrier by German company CargoLifter. Blimps could replace aircraft in a decade. Photograph: cargolifter.com

Fresh fruit, vegetables, flowers and other foreign luxuries could be part of a global revolution by carrying cargo around the world in airships instead of planes, one of the UK's leading scientists has predicted.

The government's former chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir David King, now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford, told a conference that massive helium balloons – or blimps – would replace aircraft as a key part of the global trade network as a way of cutting global warming emissions.

Despite languishing in sci-fi B-movies for most of the last 70 years, King said several major air and defence companies, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, were working on designs, and the US defence department had recently made a large grant to help develop the technology.

As a result, the helium-powered ships could be carrying freight – and even passengers – in as little as a decade's time, King told the Guardian.

"There are an awful lot of people we talk to who say this is going to happen," said King. "This is something I believe is going to happen."

King was speaking this week at the World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford, which has made transport a major focus of debate about global efforts to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, which are a major contributor to global warming and climate change. In Europe 22% of greenhouse gases are from transport, compared with 28 from heat and electricity, 21% from industry and construction and 9% each from agriculture and homes, according to the European Environment Agency.

Emerging support for blimps is one of the more colourful developments in a more general trend towards looking beyond the most obvious solutions for reducing pollution as major economies such as the UK struggle to meet pledges to de-carbonise their economies over the next few decades.

Airships would be too slow for some high-speed airfreight, and would not be needed to carry the majority of cargo for which much slower ships are suitable. But with a speed of 125kph (78mph), and much lower fuel costs, plus a carrying capacity potentially many times that of a standard Boeing 747 plane, blimps could in future carry much of current air freight.

A recent report on mobility by the Smith School, for example, quoted an estimate by one developer, UK-owned SkyCat, that it could carry twice the weight of strawberries from Spain to the UK of a standard cargo plane, with a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, much of which is from avoiding the huge fuel burn a jet engine uses to take off.

Other benefits included the possibility that airships would not need to use airports if they were fitted with "lifts" to pick up and land cargo. This in turn would reduce the need for trucking goods to and from transport hubs, and allow less well-connected areas, perhaps in inland Africa, to take part in international trade, said King. For the same reasons the blimps could also be used to reach devastated areas in need of humanitarian aid, he said.

The essential idea of airships – that they are buoyed by being lighter than air – can be traced back to the use of air lanterns in the third century BC. The technology began to come of age when the Frenchmen Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes made the first flight in a balloon in 1783. By the 1920s airships were making regular trips across the Atlantic, and in 1929 a graf zeppelin circumnavigated the planet in just over 21 days.

The craze for blimps came to an abrupt halt after the death of many people when the Hindenburg caught fire in New Jersey, US. However research and development "languished but never halted", said the Smith School report.

[buglerbilly]

Old Technology Takes Flight Again With LEMV

Northrop Says Airship Offers Long-term, Continuous ISR for $50 an Hour

By WILLIAM MATTHEWS

Published: 11 July 2010



What is it about airships? The U.S. Army is the latest to join a decades-long - but so far elusive - effort to revive technology that flourished then floundered 70 years ago.

The Army is paying Northrop Grumman $517 million to build three giant airships that would hover more than 3.8 miles above battlefields for three weeks at a time, their cameras and radars continuously collecting intelligence.

It's a fast-paced program. The first of these Army Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles (LEMVs) is to begin operating in Afghanistan in 18 months.

At 302 feet long and 84 feet tall, the LEMVs are being designed to operate unmanned, controlled from a station on the ground. They're to be equipped with newly developed VADER radars for tracking vehicles and troops on the ground, infrared and optical video cameras, and antennas and receivers for intercepting radio signals.

As described by the Army, the LEMV is to be "an autonomous, long-endurance platform" that enables "continuous over-the-horizon communications, wide-area surveillance," target reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and other missions.

The Army is depending on the airship's "unique performance characteristics" to make long-term continuous surveillance affordable. Today, it's too expensive because it must be done by manned and unmanned aircraft and satellites.

The airship will cost $25,000 or less to operate for a month, said Alan Metzger, LEMV program director for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. That works out to about $50 an hour.

Other reconnaissance aircraft cost much more. According to some estimates, a Predator UAV costs about $5,000 an hour to operate; a Global Hawk, about $25,000.

The LEMV will look like two blimps that have been squeezed together to make one especially wide one with merged envelopes.

But it's not a blimp - it's a hybrid airship, Metzger said.

A blimp is a nonrigid airship - that is, it has no internal framework - filled with helium that makes it lighter than air, thus it flies. It uses engines to maneuver while airborne.

The LEMV will be a nonrigid airship filled with helium, but it will not be lighter than air. Rather, it will derive about 40 percent of its lift from its aerodynamic shape and the forward momentum from its four vectored-thrust ducted propellers. It will have to keep moving to get aloft and stay there.

Despite its large size, the LEMV can be launched and recovered from just about anywhere, Metzger said. A small airport or even an open field will do.

"It can take off and land within a quarter of a mile," he said. And if there's a decent breeze, it can take off virtually straight up.

It can land in much the same way and be moored to a mast until it is sent aloft again, he said.

Not everyone is convinced that the Army is on the right track with the LEMV.

Brandon Buerge, an aerodynamicist and consultant to airship companies, said a hybrid airship like the one the Army wants can't meet the service's requirement to stay aloft for 21 days. It will run out of fuel long before that, he said.

The Army's requirements state that:

■ The LEMV must be able to carry up to 2,500 pounds of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) equipment and communications gear. A generator will produce 16 kilowatts of electricity to power the equipment.

■ The airship must be able to cruise at 20 knots at 20,000 feet and dash at up to 80 knots.

■ A "rapid deflation device termination system" is required so that the airship can be forced down in the event flight controls are lost, and "for protecting the possession of sensitive payloads."

■ ISR gear must be equipped with "interfaces to allow destruction to prevent enemy capture."

The first of the three LEMVs is scheduled to be inflated next May, just 11 months from the mid-June contract award, Metzger said. The first flight will be two months later, and five months after that - December 2011 - it's off to Afghanistan.

The aggressive schedule is possible because the airship relies mainly on proven technology, Metzger said. Diesel engines will power the propellers and the generator. The fabric that will make up the airship's envelope "is very mature, it's been built before," Metzger said.

"To get it done in 18 months, it needs to be a low-risk solution," he said. From a technology perspective, the airship "is very conventional."

Buerge is skeptical. It would take an airship two or three times larger than Northrop's LEMV to lift the amount of fuel needed to stay aloft for three weeks, he said. The problem is that during the early phase of its flight, when the airship is full of fuel and at its heaviest, it has to burn a lot of fuel to generate the aerodynamic lift it needs to fly.

But building a much bigger airship causes other problems, Buerge said: Weight would increase substantially, it would require fabrics that are tougher than any now in use and it would require bigger engines, which would add still more weight.

"I sincerely hope that they succeed," Buerge said. A successful LEMV could give the entire airship business a boost, "but when I get out my calculator, it's hard to see how it will work."

Metzger insists that Northrop's LEMV is "very low-risk."

Northrop has contracted with Hybrid Air Vehicles, a British firm, to design the airship. Fabric will be supplied by Warwick Mills, a New Hampshire company; and ILC Dover, a Delaware maker of blimps, spacesuits and inflatables, will build the envelope at a former Navy blimp base in Oregon.

Although the Army's focus is on the airship's potential for protracted ISR missions, there are a number of other possible uses, from patrolling U.S. borders and hunting drug smugglers to performing aerial assessments and providing emergency communications after disasters.

The LEMV can be operated as a manned airship and stay aloft for four or five days, Metzger said.

A heavy-lifting version of the LEMV could haul disaster relief supplies and other cargo and land it in places that lack airports, such as Haiti after the January earthquake, Metzger said.

For decades, airships have maintained a firm grip on the U.S. military's imagination - but not a place in the inventory.

In the 1980s, the Navy considered buying squadrons of them to serve as lookouts to protect ships against cruise missiles. Ultimately, that idea didn't fly.

More recently, in 2003 the Missile Defense Agency began developing 500-foot-long High Altitude Airships that were intended to hover over the U.S. for a year at a time to warn of missile attacks. The program was canceled in 2008.

Meanwhile, in 2005 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) set about building the Walrus, a giant airship that would be able to transport 1,000 tons of equipment or an entire Army brigade "from the fort to the fight." The Walrus expired in 2006.

Undeterred, DARPA launched the ISIS program in 2009. This time the research agency wants to build a 1,000-foot helium-filled behemoth that would hover 12 miles above a battlefield, possibly for years, staring down at enemy troops, vehicles and aircraft and keeping track of friendly forces. The ISIS airship could take flight around 2018.

Airships remain popular - in concept, at least - because they promise very long-term loitering capability at a very low price, said aviation consultant Hans Weber.

"The requirement for an unblinking view is the real driving factor, and only airships can do that," he said.

Except that so far, they can't. In case after case, for various reasons, the cost-benefit ratio just hasn't worked out in favor of airships, Weber said.

[Deks]

Could you tow an airship to altitude like you'd do with a glider, or do they have too much drag for that?

[buglerbilly]

DATE:27/08/10

SOURCE:Flight Daily News

AUVSI: Northrop Grumman reveals LEMV airship is convertible

By Stephen Trimble

Northrop Grumman says a newly launched hybrid airship will be able to lift as much cargo as a Lockheed Martin C-130E Hercules.

The US Army awarded a contract less than 50 days ago for the Northrop/Hybrid Air Vehicles team to demonstrate the long-endurance, multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV) as an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform.

But Northrop chief engineer Michael Addison says the same aircraft can lift a 15,875kg (35,000lb) payload by removing the ISR payload and making other modifications.

"By using the same hull and changing some of the configuration of the solid structure underneath, we can also provide a substantial heavy-lift capability," Addison says. "It will be a modification done without changing the basic hull, so that's exciting."

Addison's lone briefing chart for his presentation said the "heavy/mission lift configuration" can haul a 15,875kg load over a 1,852-2,778km (1,000-1,500nm) distance.

By comparison, a US Air Force fact sheet lists the C-130E as capable of delivering the same weight of cargo over a 2,315km distance.

The LEMV program, however, is aimed at proving a hybrid airship can be effective at the ISR mission, perching over a target at 20,000ft for a period of 21 days. The airship is designed to carry a 1,133kg payload for three weeks.

The ISR payload includes a ground moving target indicator radar, full motion video, communications relay and communications intercept.

Northrop is scheduled to complete a preliminary design review within two weeks, Addison says. First flight remains on track for the end of the 2011 with inflation scheduled in the late second quarter next year.

[buglerbilly]

DATE:01/09/10

SOURCE:Flight International

Lockheed Martin still pursues hybrid airship future

By Stephen Trimble

Losing a half-billion dollar contract award will not discourage Lockheed Martin from continuing to pursue hybrid airships as a future business.

The company's advanced development programmes (ADP) division instead has released a new marketing campaign, with a promotional video posted on YouTube on 24 August revealing new details about the company's technology.

Lockheed systems engineer Bob Ruszkowski confirms the company "absolutely" sees opportunities for new business, despite losing a competition for a $517 million contract from the US Army in June.

A Northrop Grumman/Hybrid Air Vehicles team instead won the deal to build the long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV), for deployment to Afghanistan in early 2012.

"We are exploring opportunities for hybrid airships beyond LEMV," Ruszkowski says.

Lockheed lost the contract despite investing significantly in hybrid airship technology. The ADP, or Skunk Works, division manufactured a demonstrator aircraft called the P791, which first flew in January 2006.


© Lockheed Martin

"The P791 demonstration aircraft still exists. It's still in our hangar. It's available to use again for other demonstrations," Ruszkowski says. "We learned quite a bit from it, and we're exploring other opportunities for hybrid airships."

In the new video, P791 programme manager Bob Boyd and other programme officials describe details of the hybrid airship technology.

The P791 is described as guided by a two-axis thrust vectoring system that is steered by fly-by-wire flight controls. The tri-hull airship is built using a "high-strength, lightweight woven material that's heat-sealed together", Lockheed says.

Lockheed's hybrid airship also incorporates an air cushion landing system with four pads, which both soften landings and "grab" the ground so no mooring equipment is required.

The company plans to offer a hybrid airship as both a surveillance and cargo aircraft. In the latter configuration, new versions of the technology scaled up to seven times its current size could haul as many as 300 freight containers at a time, Lockheed says.

The video also offers hints that Lockheed sees an opportunity with hybrid airships to break into the commercial aircraft market for the first time since the early 1990s. Its future airships will be designed to offer availability rates on a par with commercial aircraft, of between 95 and 99%, the company says.

[buglerbilly]

Northrop Grumman's LEMV program completes three major milestones

November 04, 2010



In just four months since signing a $517 million agreement with the United States Army to build three airships with 21-day persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability, Northrop Grumman's Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) program team has completed three important program milestones. The team is headed toward its fourth, the Critical Design Review (CDR), by the end of first quarter FY11.

"In less than four months time, we have completed our System Readiness Review (SRR), Initial Baseline Review (IBR) and our Preliminary Design Review (PDR) which looks at the hybrid air vehicle design, ground station infrastructure, and ground and airborne system software," said Alan Metzger, Northrop Grumman vice president and integrated program team leader of LEMV and airship programs.

The June 14, 2010, agreement provides for the design, development and testing of the first long endurance airship within an 18-month time period. "We have made great progress to date and have a great partnership with the Army. As we move forward, we look to inflate our first vehicle next spring, and our first flight is scheduled for mid-next summer," Metzger said. "Upon completion of the development ground and flight testing phase, we expect to transition to a government facility and conduct our final acceptance test in December 2011. It's a very aggressive, almost unprecedented schedule from concept-to-combat with a first of its kind system."

In early 2012, LEMV will be transported for demonstration in an operational environment. The program then transitions from the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command (USA SMDC) control to the project manager for the Army's unmanned aircraft systems.

Northrop Grumman has designed a system with plug-and-play capability to provide warfighters with a system that can rapidly accommodate next generation sensors as emerging field requirements dictate. "Our solution readily integrates into the Army's existing Universal Ground Control Station (UGCS) and Deployable Common Ground System (DCGS) command centers and ground troops in forward operating bases-the main objective is to provide US warfighters with persistent ISR capability to increase awareness of the ever changing battlefield.

"LEMV is longer than a football field, taller than a seven-story building and will remain airborne for more than three weeks at a time, delivering a high level of fuel efficiency. Fuel costs are minimal at $11,000 for a 21-day period of service. It's very green," Metzger added.

Northrop Grumman has teamed with Hybrid Air Vehicles, Ltd. of the United Kingdom using its HAV304 platform, Warwick Mills, ILC Dover, AAI Corporation, SAIC and a team of technology leaders from 18 US states and three countries to build LEMV. Northrop Grumman will provide system integration expertise and flight and ground control operations to safely take off and land the unmanned vehicle for worldwide operations.

Source: Northrop Grumman

[buglerbilly]

More on this.............

Northrop’s Huge Army Spy Blimp Floats On

By Spencer Ackerman November 4, 2010 | 1:11 pm



Northrop Grumman’s ginormous experimental spying blimp is progressing rapidly, the company wants you to know. In barely a year, Northrop predicts, it’ll be ready to test in an “operational environment.”

The Army awarded Northrop a $517 million contract in June to develop a trio of unmanned, seven-story, football-field sized mega-blimps called Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles. If successful, the blimp will stay in the air for up to three weeks at a time, using 2500 pounds’ worth of “sensors, antennas, data links and signals intelligence equipment” to capture still and video images of civilians and adversaries below and send the pictures to troops’ bases. It should work with the Army’s standard drone-controlling system, called the Universal Ground Control Station. And it’s a hybrid, lifted into the air by helium and propelled by four diesel engines.

In Afghanistan, the Army’s Warrior drones provide what intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance experts call “persistent” views — that is, they hover above a given area for long periods of time taking pictures — but the drone can’t stay aloft for anything close to three weeks. One Army official involved with the project judged that it would take 12 advanced Reaper drones to replicate the blimp’s functions.

According to a Northrop statement, the blimp passed three initial tests that judge the feasibility of its design, its ability to talk to a ground station and the success of its software. The company says it’ll inflate the first blimp in the spring and fly it in the summer; all tests are supposed to finish by the end of 2012.

The Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle isn’t the only supersized spy blimp in the works. Last year, the Navy announced it wanted blimps that could see across the light spectrum and use laser radar to identify potential targets. C4ISR Journal reported in August that the Air Force has teamed up with the Pentagon’s bomb-stopping task force, known as JIEDDO, to create another mega-blimp specifically to hunt down improvised explosive devices. And Lockheed Martin won a $400 million contract with Darpa last year to build a 15-story blimp (!) called the Integrated Sensor Is Structure, a robo-blimp that can “track the most advanced cruise missiles at 600 km and dismounted enemy combatants at 300 km.” None of these blimps are in the air yet, but somehow the sky feels crowded already.

Illo: Northrop Grumman

[Gubler, A.]

This looks like the British Sky Cat LTA tech has found a home... Good that.

[buglerbilly]

Yup, the airship design is by the UK Hybrid Air Vehicles, see their comment below...............


Hybrid Air Vehicles maintains its own portfolio of proprietary LTA intellectual property and know-how which includes all such property that was in the ownership of ATG and SkyCat Group Limited.

http://www.hybridairvehicles.net/company_heritage.html

[buglerbilly]

TF Iron Launches Blimp Over FOB Andar

(Source: US Army; issued Nov. 29, 2010)


The Precision Threat Decision System (PTDS) blimp inflates in preparation for first flight at Forward Operating Base Andar Nov. 17. This "eye in the sky" has three different cameras, as well as night and bad weather sensors. (US Army photo)

GHAZNI PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- Task Force Iron Rakkasan launched the first flight of the blimp over Forward Operating Base Andar Nov. 17.

The blimp, properly known as a Precision Threat Detection System (PTDS), allows a 360-degree, all-weather, birds'-eye view of the surrounding area, with very little restrictions.

The PTDS requires two people to operate it at any given time. Alfred Henderson, a PTDS crew member, specializes in the maintenance of the system's platform but, like all of the operators, is well trained on the entire system.

The system operators require an extensive background of qualifications. With few exceptions, everyone working with the PTDS has prior military service. Additionally, most of the crew has civilian knowledge working in defense programs and contracting.

"(The defense contractor) ensures everyone working with the PTDS has a lot of experience and versatility," said Henderson. "Each operator is fully capable of operating this system, as well as handling the difficulties that come with living and working in a combat area."

The "eye in the sky" has proven to be a great asset to the American Soldiers in Afghanistan. The operators are able to watch the Soldiers on patrols and provide them with a view they would otherwise lack. Viewing the area from above eliminates the enemy's ability to hide behind a wall or in a ditch.

The blimp has the ability to view the area using three different camera views, as well as seeing at night and during bad weather.

"The camera lets us see more than the enemy wants us to see," one of the operators said.

Insurgents in Andar District seem to be quite aware of the impact the new blimp will have. Almost immediately after the blimp took flight, insurgents unsuccessfully attempted to shoot it down.

PTDS system operators Michael Baumgartner and Robert McGuire both served previously in the Air Force.

"This is a great way for us to continue to serve our country," Baumgartner said. "We can help the Soldiers to be more effective on the battlefield and perhaps even help to save a life. Any job that supports the troops is worth working hard for."

"We look forward to increasing the security bubble in Andar District with the help of the blimp," said Lt. Col. David Fivecoat, commander of 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry (Task Force Iron), 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. "The insurgents will have a hard time hiding when the PTDS is up and watching."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

DATE:02/02/11

SOURCE:Flight International

LEMV airship design gets US Army approval

By Gayle Putrich

Northrop Grumman's long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV) airship programme is running according to schedule, the company says, having completed its critical design review in late November.

The next step for the massive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system being built for the US Army is hull inflation at the final assembly site, which has been decided but not disclosed.

"There are three upcoming major milestones in the next 10 months," says Alan Metzger, Northrop's vice president and integrated programme team leader for LEMV and airship programmes. "We'll have hull inflation in the spring and first flight of the airship test article by mid-to-late summer. Upon completion of the development ground and flight testing phase, we expect to transition to a government facility and conduct our final acceptance long endurance flight just before year's end. In early 2012, LEMV will participate in an army joint military utility assessment in an operational environment," he adds.

Under the June 2010 contract with the army's Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, LEMV is to be designed and developed within an 18-month time period.

"It's a very aggressive schedule to deliver from concept-to-combat in this time period," Metzger says.

Described as "longer than a football field and taller than a seven-storey building", the airship will be capable of remaining aloft for 21 days at a time. Northrop's partners in the venture include UK-based Hybrid Air Vehicles, as well as US-based AAI and SAIC.

[buglerbilly]

Army Wants Spy Blimps to Psych Out Insurgents

By Spencer Ackerman March 4, 2011 | 11:16 am



Blimps aren’t exactly known for striking fear into the hearts of men. But the Army’s betting they can still make insurgents in Afghanistan feel like they’re living in a panopticon.

Lots of bases in Afghanistan have surveillance aerostats floating above them on a tether, thanks to a program called RAID. Cheaper and easier to operate than drones, the balloons have helped troops spot insurgents as they plant bombs, Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, the outgoing leader of the Pentagon’s anti-bomb squad, told reporters this week. The fact that the blimps are tethered means their spy gear can only view a set area, but the Army sees them providing an even bigger psychological advantage.

In a pre-solicitation released Wednesday, the Army asks industry to prepare an “Aerostat Deception system,” giving small units blimps that can “deceive insurgents with the appearance of enhanced capabilities.” Insurgents see the aerostats floating above bases, the idea goes, and figure they’re being watched wherever they are.

It’s not like they’d be pure decoys, though. The aerostats the Army wants would still perform “surveillance at 1000 feet above ground level.” But they’d also carry a decoy payload “simulating a surveillance system,” making it look like the blimps are more powerful than they are.

Of course, the military might soon have super-powerful blimps, these ones untethered to any base, for use in Afghanistan. The “Blue Devil,” seven times the size of the Goodyear Blimp, will carry a dozen sensors, all talking to each other through a supercomputer, and could be deployed by the fall. By 2012, Northop Grumman hopes to have its Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle floating at 20,000 feet above Afghanistan. That’s a blimp the size of a football field.

These are far more modest, a mere 15 feet in diameter. But you put enough of them in the air, visible to insurgents, and maybe the Taliban will feel like Rockwell in that ’80s video.

Photo: National Guard

[buglerbilly]

DATE:23/03/11

SOURCE:Flight International

Skunk Works P-791 airship revived as civil cargo-lifter

By Stephen Trimble

Less than a year after losing a major US Army order, Lockheed Martin will revive and scale-up the P-791 hybrid airship to carry at least 20t of cargo under a new contract signed by a Canada-based commercial start-up.

Aviation Capital Enterprises, Inc., of Calgary, has ordered the first airship, which is rebranded the SkyTug, for delivery from Lockheed's Skunk Works division in 2012, says founder Kirk Purdy.

"We're actually well along into the design of a 20t lifter," Purdy says. "The system requirements are close to frozen for that."


©Lockheed Martin

While the first SkyTug will be demonstrated next year under an experimental license to potential buyers, Lockheed will deliver a second hybrid airship to Aviation Capital in late-2012 for launching certification tests with the US Federal Aviation Administration, Purdy says.

"Lockheed is taking us through that right now," Purdy says. "This is not a surprise to the FAA. They've been briefed."

Although Aviation Capital has not signed up any firm customers, discussions are ongoing with "strongly interested parties" in the Middle East, Brazil, Mexico and Canada for the SkyTug, Purdy says.

The concept also adds to the list of active programmes involving hybrid airship designs.

Lockheed first flew the P-791 demonstrator five years ago, but the company lost a bid for a half-billion dollar long endurance multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV) contract, which the army awarded last June to Northrop Grumman and Hybrid Air Vehicles.

The LEMV programme requires Northrop to deploy the first aircraft in December to Afghanistan to provide aerial surveillance over 21-day missions, or carry up to 6,900kg (15,000lb) of cargo as far as 2,400nm.

Two months after losing the LEMV contract, Lockheed's Skunk Works officials still predicted a bright future for the P-791. "It's still in our hangar. It's available to use again for other demonstrations," Bob Ruszkowski, a Skunk Works system engineer, said in August. "We're exploring other opportunities for hybrid airships."

The first SkyTugs will be designed to lift 20t payloads, but future designs could be scaled-up to carry from 50 to several hundred tons of cargo, Purdy says.

"We're creating an industry here," he adds.

[buglerbilly]

DATE:07/04/11

SOURCE:Flight International

US Air Force joins airship demonstration race with Blue Devil 2

By Stephen Trimble

An $86.2 million contract award last month reveals the US Air Force will seek to prove if airships can replace fixed-wing aircraft on some surveillance missions over Afghanistan.

About nine months after the US Army launched its long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV) programme, the air force awarded defence technology start-up MAV6 a contract, Blue Devil Block 2.

MAV6 chief executive David Deptula confirms an airship will be deployed to Afghanistan in January to demonstrate a lighter-than-air vehicle with a multi-intelligence payload.

That timing coincides with the army's plans to demonstrate the LEMV airship under a $517 million contract awarded to Northrop Grumman/Hybrid Air Vehicles last June.

Deptula, who retired three months ago as the air force's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, says the Blue Devil concept pre-dates the launch of the army programme.

Deptula does not consider Blue Devil and LEMV as competitive programmes, but as complementary systems.

Unlike the heavylift capability provided by LEMV's all-new hybrid airship, Blue Devil relies on conventional airship vehicle designs, Deptula says. The TCOM-built airship is nearly 113m (370ft) long, with a payload compartment measuring 7m long by 3m wide by 2.1m high, he says.

Although named Blue Devil Block 2, the airship demonstration bears little resemblance to the previously unpublicised Block 1 effort.

Deptula describes Block 1 as the air force's follow-on to the US Marine Corps' Angel Fire programme, which integrated a wide-area airborne surveillance payload with instant playback capability with a Beechcraft C-12 Huron airframe.

Besides changing from a fixed-wing C-12 to an airship, the Block 2 programme also includes a sensor upgrade.

The air force will integrate both the Sierra Nevada Gorgon Stare and BAE Systems/Lockheed Martin autonomous real-time ground ubiquitous surveillance imaging system as wide-area airborne surveillance sensors. A pallet with a ground moving target indicator payload will also be integrated, along with signals intelligence sensors, Deptula says.

MAV6's concept envisages the Blue Devil Block 2 as the mothership of a vast surveillance network, co-ordinating with other airships and the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper unmanned air system with Gorgon Stare to provide unblinking coverage over a huge area, Deptula says.

The USAF fielded the first Gorgon Stare payload earlier this year on the MQ-9 fleet. Each payload includes 10 camera apertures, increasing surveillance by an order of magnitude over the single aperture of the MQ-9's multi-spectral targeting system camera.

[buglerbilly]

Rethinking Heavy Lift

May 5, 2011

By Bill Sweetman
Washington



Under a little-publicized program sponsored by the Pentagon, a small Southern California company is working on a design that is radical even by the quirky standards of buoyancy-aided aircraft: a rigid-hulled aircraft that varies its density to land and take off vertically.

After Congress pulled funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (Darpa) Walrus program in 2006, Frank Cappuccio, boss of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, commented that the idea of a partly buoyant air vehicle with a 500-ton payload, three times that of an Antonov An-124, “just didn’t pass the giggle test.”

But the idea is not dead. Advocates say a buoyant vehicle has the potential to carry more cargo than any practical heavier-than-air machine at much lower cost and using far less energy per ton-mile. It is faster than a ship, can serve inland destinations and does not need a long runway.

The air vehicle portion of the Northrop Grumman Long Endurance Multi Intelligence Vehicle (LEM-V) is intended to be adaptable into a tactical transport demonstrator. Lockheed Martin’s LEM-V contender is the basis of a Canadian-funded program to develop a commercial transport vehicle for Arctic energy support.

Northrop Grumman’s teammate, Britain’s Hybrid Air Vehicles, and Lockheed Martin are using similar technology, with non-rigid, pressure-stabilized, multi-lobe hulls. The multi-lobe hull generates some lift, so the aircraft are heavier than air, using aerodynamic lift and thrust vectoring as well as buoyancy to fly.

This overcomes a big operational and economic problem of a conventional airship—it is efficient in flight but almost impossible to handle on the ground without a mooring device and a large crew. These craft cannot, however, take off vertically or hover with a full load, so they need a runway, even though their lift off speeds are low.

The new Defense Department program uses different technology. Aeros of Montebello, Calif., founded by Russian-born Igor Pasternak, seemed like an outsider in the Walrus contest. But the company is now the sole-source supplier for a project called Pelican, funded via the Pentagon’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office, reporting to Zachary Lemnios, deputy director for defense research and engineering.

In 2012-13, Aeros plans to fly the Pelican, a 230-ft.-long, 600,000-cu.-ft. demonstrator for its rigid-aeroshell, variable-buoyancy (RAVB) technology. Inside the shell, comprising a load-bearing frame of carbon-fiber trusses covered by thin-gauge rigid panels, will be a membrane to contain the helium lifting gas. Inside that membrane will be pressurized pump-fed tanks. More helium under pressure in the tanks makes the vehicle heavier, and less makes it lighter.

The initial Pelican is not designed to have a payload, but to demonstrate the aeroshell, the variable-buoyancy system (a test rig has been built under a Darpa contract) and a flight-control system that integrates aerodynamic, buoyant and thrust-vectoring effects to allow the craft to take off and land vertically and to hover. In later and larger versions, the variable-buoyancy system will allow the craft to load and discharge cargo without venting gas or needing external water ballast, while remaining heavier than air for stability on the ground.

The variable buoyancy system is expected to be more responsive than the air-filled ballonets that are used to adjust lift on non-rigid airships, which have to maintain forward speed or be moored at all times.

Some technologies needed for very large vehicles would be left to the second-generation RAVB test aircraft, a 440-ft.-long, 3.8-million-cu.-ft. vehicle with a 60-ton payload. Those features would include a combined diesel and gas propulsion system and the ability to superheat helium for takeoff. After takeoff, the helium would cool to ambient temperature and the vehicle would use aerodynamic and buoyant lift to cruise—80-100 kt. at up to 10,000 ft. Aeros has also experimented with techniques for extracting water from the engine exhaust to compensate for fuel use. (Superheating and water extraction were tried in the 1920s and 1930s but have not been used since.)

The 60-ton vehicle is unfunded, and a 200-ton, or even a 500-ton version is further in the future. Aeros says its vehicles will be able to transfer loads on and off ships and discharge without landing. The company argues that survivability may be better than some expect: The underside of the gas membrane is under no pressure, so will not leak much if punctured, and the hull structure is redundant and lightly loaded. Nobody expects these aircraft to fly into hot landing zones.

Despite the fate of Walrus, the support of technological strategists such as Lemnios indicates that not everyone is laughing.

Photo: Aeros

[buglerbilly]

Northrop: LEMV On Track For 1st Flight This Year

Posted by Bradley Peniston | June 22nd, 2011 | Paris Air Show 2011


Artist's conception of Northrop Grumman's LEMV airship / Northrop Grumman image

By BRADLEY PENISTON • PARIS — On June 11, Northrop Grumman partially inflated the three-fabric bag that will help lift its LEMV airship on a first flight later this year, said Alan Metzger, the company’s vice president and integrated program team leader of LEMV and airship programs.

It was an unofficial milestone on a program that has hit all of its official ones, Metzger said. One year ago, the U.S. Army signed Northrop to a $517 million deal to build three lighter-than-air (LTA) surveillance vehicles and provide up to five years of support.

The largest airship built in a half-century, the 300-foot LEMV is designed to loft a 2,500-pound payload up to 30,000 feet for three weeks at a time, he said. In April, the carbon-fiber composite frame was largely complete; in May, the airship’s German Centurion engines arrived for testing.

Metzger said Northrop will deliver the first LEMV by year’s end, and the Army to declare it initially operationally capable soon thereafter.

If that happens, the airship will have gone from concept to flying in 18 months.

“It’s going to be sporty, but we’re on track, and we’re doing well,” he said.

The press briefing kicked off with a flashy video that started with “Transformers”-style motion graphics and crescendoed to an aural and visual assault that vaulted from ordinary weapons-marketing fare into Michael Bay territory.

But Metzger was scarcely less dramatic in his vision for LEMV and its variants.

“Why LTA?” he asked. “Basically, it is going to redefine persistent surveillance.”

Flying a three-week mission requires under $15,000 in fuel costs and far fewer people than any kind of manned aircraft could, he said.

The airship’s speedy development? “It could very well redefine the acquisition process for future acquisitions,” he said.

And the aircraft’s potential to spawn cargo-carrying variants?

“We think there will be a [cargo or logistics] market that will be revolutionized by lighter-than-air,” he said.

Metzger said Northrop is already “working with a few customers about converting what we have into some kind of low-cost lift” vehicle, he said.

LEMV isn’t the Pentagon’s only airship effort.

In March, the U.S. Air Force launched Blue Devil Block 2, awarding an $86.2 million contract to MAV6, a startup company run by former USAF ISR chief David Deptula.

Metzger said the Air Force is seeking three- to five-day endurance, far less then the Army’s three-week requirement for LEMV.

“I don’t believe Blue Devil is a competitor at all,” he said.

Lockheed Martin is also in the airship business, having won a $400 million DARPA grant in 2009 to build a prototype reconnaissance airship that can stay aloft for years at a time.

[buglerbilly]

DATE:23/06/11

SOURCE:Flight Daily News

PARIS: Northrop Grumman proposes a 'civvie' LEMV

By Stephen Trimble



A commercial customer could be announced within 12 months for a new heavy freighter version of a hybrid airship in development for the US Army, Northrop Grumman said.

The commercial market appears to be evolving rapidly even as a Northrop/Hybrid Air Vehicles team is still assembling the first long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle ordered by the army a year ago.

"This week we have begun parts of the inflating process," said Alan Metzger, vice-president and integrated product team leader for LEMV and airship programmes.

Nineteen sections that comprise the structure of the balloon will be inflated over a period of several weeks, he added.

The army could buy as many as three of the optionally manned hybrid airships, which rely on both buoyancy and aerodynamic forces to achieve lift.

An undisclosed customer within the army intends to demonstrate that the LEMV can perch at 20,000ft (6,100m) over a three-week period with a 1,133kg (2,500lb) payload that includes four high-definition electro-optical/infrared sensors, a signals interceptor, radar and three communications relay antennas, Northrop said.

If the LEMV is successful, it could replace the equivalent of up to 25 fixed-wing, medium-altitude surveillance platforms, Northrop added.

The same vehicle with a few modifications is already being offered to the commercial freighter market.

The cargo version can be designed to carry up to 18,143kg for 1,000nm (1,185km). Required design changes include a new freight floor added to a payload bay, an enlarged fuel/freight module and hover pads added to the landing skids, Metzger said.

Northrop's interest in the commercial market is moving forward after its chief competitor - the Lockheed Martin SkyTug - teamed with a Canadian start-up to produce a hybrid airship for the commercial cargo market. Meanwhile, the US Air Force has also signed an $82 million contract with MAV6 to develop a surveillance airship with one-week endurance.

"Lots of people have ideas, and they're all good ideas," Metzger said. "What we have is a vehicle."

[buglerbilly]

Giant Spy Blimp Battle Could Decide Surveillance’s Future

By Noah Shachtman July 6, 2011 | 7:00 am



How many giant experimental spy blimps does the military need over Afghanistan, exactly?

That’s one of many questions the Senate Armed Services Committee is asking after an intramilitary battle has erupted over what many expect to be the future of aerial surveillance. The Army and the Air Force each have their own football field-sized airships in the works; the Senate panel wants to know why it should pay for both — especially as the Air Force seems fickle about its model and keeps changing the spy sensors on board. Legislators are asking: What gives?

This is more than some obscure bureaucratic hair-pull. The answer to those questions — and the winners of those fights — could determine the direction of U.S. intelligence-gathering for years to come.

Here’s why. Surveillance drones like the Predator and the Reaper are starting to lose just a bit of their sheen in military circles, even though their number of “orbits,” or combat air patrols, has more than quadrupled in the last five years. Giant spy blimps are the new hotness. They can stay in the air for much longer than any drone. Instead of a Predator’s single camera, the blimps can carry a whole bunch of surveillance equipment, because they’re so freakin’ huge. Any one of those sensors could spy on an entire town at once. There’s even enough space on board the airship to process all that data in the sky, easing the burden on overloaded intelligence analysts.

A sign of the spy blimp’s rising stock: Retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula — who, until recently, was in charge of all Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) programs — is now the CEO of MAV6, a Vicksburg, Mississippi, startup building one of these next-gen airships for the military.

It’s part of a project called “Blue Devil.” The behemoth, 340-foot-long blimp and all of its spy gear should be ready for Air Force duty by January, Deptula promises. And if Blue Devil works as promised — staying four miles above Afghanistan for five days at a time — drones could suddenly seems like an expensive anachronism.

“It brings to bear a completely different concept for ISR: multiple sensors on one platform integrated with on-board processing and storage. It’s the first time we’re using a modular system on an aircraft to host a variety of sensors, and they can be rapidly changed for new or different sensors in a matter of hours,” Deptula tells Danger Room. “We’ve got the world’s largest ISR payload — and ‘real estate’ to host it, and nearly a supercomputer on board to process what they find.”

The Pentagon is planning to spend $4.5 billion to mount 15 more drone air patrols. The costs of operating, maintaining and processing the information from the roboplanes runs about $8,000 per hour. Deptula claims Blue Devil would run $1,000 per hour, because it requires fewer people (although that’s just an educated guess; the thing hasn’t flown yet). “A handful of Blue Devil orbits could achieve significantly greater ISR effectiveness for a fraction of that cost and save billions,” he insists. For now, the Air Force is spending $211 million on one of Deptula’s blimps.

The Senate Armed Service Committee digs the idea. “There are many platforms and systems that advertise ‘multisensor integration,’ but almost always the different sensors … cannot view the same piece of terrain at the same time,” the committee notes in its recent report on next year’s Pentagon budget. “Blue Devil is different: this QRC [quick reaction capability] is designed to give ground forces a new capability to detect, locate, identify, and track targets seamlessly, building on concepts and practices pioneered by special forces to tightly integrate sensors and pursuit operations.”

But the committee “is concerned about recent turmoil in program plans,” according to the report. For starters, Blue Devil isn’t the only ginormous airship heading for Afghanistan. The Army has one in the works, too.

It’s called the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV. It’s being built by Northrop Grumman, the defense contracting behemoth. It’s allegedly going to start casting its “unblinking eye” by January. And the LEMV supposed to stay in the skies for weeks, thanks to a combination of lighter-than-air helium and the aerodynamic lift you’d ordinarily see in an airplane. Initial cost: $517 million, for three airships. But, according to InsideDefense.com, the Pentagon is already asking for another $28 million.

Which naturally has lead the Senate Armed Service to ask why we need both of these things.

“These developments raise the question of the value of Blue Devil Block 2,” the committee report reads.

“The Army now plans to deploy the LEMV to Afghanistan in the same timeframe as Blue Devil Block 2. Moreover, the Army is now planning to rapidly equip LEMV, after it is first demonstrated, with the same sensor systems that were originally planned for Blue Devil Block 2,” the committee adds. “The sensor changes raise questions about how effective and useful it will be, while progress in the LEMV program raises the issue of whether Blue Devil Block 2 funds would be better invested in LEMV program acceleration and expansion.”

LEMV may not be able to stay in the air quite as long as advertised. A recent technical presentation (.pdf) noted that the airship might stay aloft for a mere 10 days at a stretch.

Yet the Air Force is showing some signs of ambivalence about its Blue Devil airship. Turns out, the air service has grown rather attached to its current gaggle of spy planes.

That’s ironic, since it wasn’t that long ago that Defense Secretary Bob Gates complained that getting the Air Force to field more Predator and Reaper drones was like “pulling teeth.” The upstart robo-planes were a threat to the air service’s established, man-in-the-cockpit fleet. Now, however, the upstarts have become the establishment. Drones form the bedrock of the Air Force’s surveillance effort.

“Big Safari” — that’s the code name for the Air Force office in charge of special intelligence programs — doesn’t appear to be quite ready to shift gears again. Especially not when shifting gears means putting a small company like Deptula’s in the driver’s seat.

“The Air Force transferred responsibility for Blue Devil recently to the Big Safari Program Office, which promptly proposed wholesale changes to the program — an entirely different platform, continued use of legacy [c]ameras, and different SIGINT [signals intelligence] sensors,” the Senate report notes.

Most of those changes were ultimately beaten back. But there are still open issues about the future of Blue Devil — and how the airship relates to its past.

The Blue Devil program started by packing a bunch of sensors together onto a turboprop plane. That surveillance gear includes eavesdropping equipment that can pinpoint a chatty militant’s location, as well as the Angel Fire “wide-area airborne surveillance system,” or WAAS. It’s a hive of nine separate cameras, each one shooting at a very slow rate and at a slightly different angle — allowing a whole town to be watched at once.

On the Blue Devil turboprop plane, the WAAS sensors and the eavesdropping unit can tell each other where to look or listen. According to the committee, that combo is now “making significant contributions” in southern Afghanistan, “particularly in support of prosecuting high-value targets.” In other words, it’s helping the military hunt down and kill militants.

But Deptula — and the Air Force — don’t just want to move that gear onto the airship for the second phase of Blue Devil. There’s talk of upgrading the WAAS sensor, from nine cameras to 92. Plus, the blimp has room for more and bigger antennas. And the more and bigger antennas you have, the easier it is to pinpoint locations. The blimp could be a much better eavesdropper. The Air Force and the ear-men at the National Security Agency are still wrestling over which signals intelligence package will fly on the airship.

Even muddier is the Air Force plan for what to do if the spy blimp wows the military if and when it goes to Afghanistan; there’s no follow-on effort in the budget, at the moment.

Making things murkier still is that there are two more giant blimp programs making their way through the military’s development chain.

The Armed Services Committee is kind of fed up. It’s demanding that the Pentagon appoint a single point person who can sort out which airship projects make sense, and which don’t. This is supposed to a time of coming budget cuts, after all. The sky is pretty big. But it’s not big enough for all these king-sized blimps.

Illo: Mav6

[buglerbilly]

WSGI Completes Additional Flight Testing of Argus One UAV in Preparation for Yuma Flight Exercise

(Source: World Surveillance Group Inc.; issued July 8, 2011)



KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL --- World Surveillance Group Inc., a developer of lighter-than-air unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and related technologies, announced today that it has completed additional testing of its Argus One UAV in Easton, Maryland in preparation for the airship's flight testing and demonstration at the U.S. Army's proving ground facility in Yuma, Arizona.

The recent series of Argus One flight testing focused on improvements to the electronic control systems and the gas bag stability system as well as different engine and propeller configurations. The Company has also been able to evaluate the overall flight stability and maneuverability of the airship and its performance at various altitudes up to 2,500 feet in differing wind and weather conditions.

In preparation for the Argus One's testing at Yuma, WSGI has also built and tested redundant backup systems for the airship, including propulsion packages, onboard electronics and gas bag systems.

WSGI also announced today that it has decided to accelerate its integration of certain unique customer payloads into the pod bay of the Argus One UAV prior to its flight testing at Yuma. As a result, WSGI has agreed with the test directors at Yuma to reschedule the Company's test dates from July 11-22 to later in the third quarter of 2011. WSGI has focused on constructing a modular sensor bay on its airship that is capable of hosting various sensors and payloads with a simple plug and play architecture that provides power, an airship inertial navigation system and environmental data.

In part as a result of the continued successful flight testing of the Argus One in Easton, WSGI has received strong interest from potential partners to test and demonstrate the Argus One at Yuma as a mobile platform for specific suveillance and communications packages. WSGI is adjusting its testing program to accomodate such potential partnership relationships and has begun to prepare the Argus One airship to provide increased power and payload capacity to support the unique requirements of the specific sureveillance and communications packages.

Glenn D. Estrella, President and CEO of WSGI, stated "We are extremely excited by the potential of the Argus One airship being used as a mobile surveillance and communications platform. We believe adjusting our testing and demonstration schedule of the Argus One so that the airship can include specific payload packages when it flies at Yuma is a critical step towards commercialization of our Argus One UAV."

Michael K. Clark, WSGI's Chairman, added, "We have been provided with important opportunities to pursue potential partnership relationships to further the development and commercialization of our airships and we intend to take full advantage of such opportunities to move our Company forward in the interests of all of our shareholders. We look forward to demonstrating the capabilities of our Argus One UAV at Yuma in the near future."

World Surveillance Group Inc. designs, develops, markets and sells autonomous, lighter-than-air UAVs capable of carrying payloads that provide persistent security and/or wireless communications solutions at low, mid, and high altitudes. WSGI's airships, when integrated with electronics systems and other high technology payloads, are designed for use by government-related and commercial entities that require real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or communications support for military, homeland defense, border control, drug interdiction, natural disaster relief and maritime missions.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

DATE:14/07/11

SOURCE:Flight International

US Army deploys Skystar-180 aerostats in Afghanistan

By Arie Egozi



The US Army has taken delivery of its first three Skystar-180 tactical aerostat systems in southern Afghanistan, with the equipment primarily intended for use in a force protection role.

Delivered by Israel's RT LTA Systems, in partnership with Fairfax, Virginia-based Focus Consulting & Services, the systems are due to be followed by a further three aerostats scheduled to arrive in August.

The Skystar-180 is a small tactical aerostat which carries a Controp T-Stamp electro-optical/infrared sensor. This provides 360° coverage from an altitude up to 1,000ft (305m).

Once airborne, the payload is operated from a portable control unit which displays real-time imagery and the exact coordinates of objects of interest.



The Skystar-180 is a trailer-based, towable system, which can be easily redeployed to alternate locations using a light military vehicle.

Other Skystar systems are already in use by customers worldwide, including Canadian forces in Afghanistan, Israeli defence forces and the Israeli police.

RT LTA Systems is a subsidiary of Aeronautics Defense Systems - one of Israel's leading manufacturers of unmanned air systems.

[buglerbilly]

DATE:28/07/11

SOURCE:Flight International

Helium leak forces Lockheed airship down on maiden flight

By Stephen Trimble

Lockheed Martin is investigating why a high-altitude airship was forced to make a controlled landing less than 4h after lifting off on a maiden flight that was supposed to last several days.

The high-altitude long-endurance demonstrator (HALE-D) rose to 32,000ft after lifting off at 05:47 from Akron, Ohio, on 27 July, but then experienced a serious anomaly, Lockheed said.

Helium was escaping from the airship's gas envelope, preventing the demonstrator from ascending to 60,000ft, the company said. The US Army's Space and Missile Defence Command (SMDC), the project's sponsor, directed Lockheed to land the aircraft as quickly as possible.


© Lockheed Martin

Lockheed said the airship was losing helium but was still under control during the descent, falling a rate of 6.10m/sec (20ft/sec) - or slower than a parachutist. However, the airship landed in a wooded area on top of trees in southwestern Pennsylvania. Local officials were still trying to reach the site of the airship's landing on the evening of 27 July.

Lockheed is waiting for the remnants of the aircraft to be returned before investigating the cause of the original helium leak.

It was not immediately clear how the incident would impact the army's interest in the programme. HALE-D was expected to demonstrate the abilities of a high-altitude airship to function as a communications relay system for several days.

The mission was aborted before the airship could reach a high altitude, and the flight ended less than 3h after it began.

[McFriday]

Let me see...
"still under control during descent"

"landed on top of trees" miles from take off area.

"waiting for remnants of the aircraft"

"Lockheed Martin"

Why on earth would you land something on trees, miles away, destroy it and claim it was under control?

Maybe I'm slow but I feel I'm missing something here, SNAFU comes to mind so does BS!

Cheers,
Mac

PS!
I get it now, the descent was controlled, the landing was what we used to call a "CRASH".

Clever, aren't I?

Mac

[buglerbilly]

Gallery: The Blimps of War

By Lena Groeger August 1, 2011 | 7:00 am

For seven decades, they were a curiosity, a relic of a lighter-than-air future that never quite came true. But in recent years, airships have once again become a major force in aviation. The Pentagon has gone especially blimp-crazy, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into advanced -- and massive -- surveillance airships that can stay in the sky way longer than any drone. Here are some of the new Blimps of War.



Blue Devil

This "freakishly large" airship would hover 20,000 feet above ground, using its on-board supercomputer to spy for miles around. The power comes from up to 12 different sensors, including an eavesdropping unit and nine tiny cameras that talk to each other while adjusting precisely where to look and listen. After collecting all that data, the Blue Devil has enough real estate on board to do much of the processing in the air – no human analyst required.

According to retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, "it could change the nature of overhead surveillance." For one, he estimates it'd be a lot cheaper, costing about $1,000 per hour (compared to the $8,000 of other airships).

The construction of this longer than a football field blimp is still underway, but it's expected to be ready for the Air Force by January. Right now, the same surveillance gear that would be used on the airship is already in Afghanistan atop four Blue Devil planes.

Photo: USAF



ISIS

Darpa's supersized ISIS (or Integrated Sensor is Structure) is a technology packed 450-foot long airship that would perch 70,000 feet in the air. The unmanned vehicle is designed to float at its Heaven's eye view for up to 10 years, zipping along at up to 115 miles per hour to reach anywhere on the globe in 10 days.

The ISIS would be pretty impressive with just its surveillance and tracking capabilities – 187 miles for people on the ground and 373 miles for cruise missiles in the air. But what really distinguishes it from other monster blimps are its new technologies. Its array radar system could spot any movement on or above the battlefield – in high res. The hull, made of super lightweight material, would be much stronger than conventional materials and last 10 times as long. And the whole airship can also take care of itself via solar-regenerative power, absorbing sunlight by day and generating energy with fuel cells at night.

The airship will provide "unsurpassed situational awareness," according to Darpa. ISIS is still in the design and simulation phase, but we're hoping to see a small demonstration prototype by 2014.

Photo: Darpa



HALE-D

Hovering above the jet stream, this autonomous high-flying airship would be able to survey millions of miles of airspace for months. The HALE-D is part of the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command’s High Altitude Airship (HAA) program. Lockheed Martin claims that the airship technology enters "into a realm that gives users capabilities on par with satellites at a fraction of the cost."

Unfortunately, its first test flight this week didn't go so well. The airship encountered some technical difficulties at 32,000 feet, and crashed into the woods of New Freeport, Pennsylvania. Authorities are now trying to fetch the shriveled Hale-D from the tree tops. Better luck next time.

Photo: Lockheed Martin



HiSentinel80

Launching into the sky like a weather balloon, the HiSentinel80 is just one of a family of autonomous, high-altitude, long-endurance airships being developed for the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command.

It's made of super thin translucent fabric which folds down to a small cube but inflates to 200 feet in the air. It runs on internal solar panels and can survey a 600-mile-wide radius. And since it's perched 13 to 15 miles high, it's safer from enemy attack or bad weather. The HiSentinel80 had its first successful flight test last November, and is now in the process of more testing for environmental effects and military utility.

Photo: U.S. Army



Navy MZ-3A Manned Airship

This do-gooder airship patrolled New Orleans from above after the oil spill. The Navy sent the 178-foot blimp (which uses less fuel than a helicopter or plane) to help clean up, direct large skimming ships to patches of oil, and search for trapped turtles, dolphins, birds and whales.

Photo: U.S. Navy



Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence (LEMV) Airship

The Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence (LEMV) airship has been likened to an "unblinking eye," soaring for weeks at a time and aiming its bundle of infra-red sensors and signal intelligence system at anything below. What makes the LEMV so special (besides its "more than 21 days of unblinking stare") is a hybrid propulsion system, which combines helium and an aerodynamic design that gives it airplane-like lift.

The defense contracting corporation Northrop Grumman got a $517 million contract last year to build three of the monster spy blimps for the military. The Army plans to deploy them to Afghanistan, but we won't see the first LEMV until at least January, if not later.

Photo: Northrop Grumman



Persistent Threat Detection System (PTDS)

While some blimps fly freely, others are anchored to ground. The tethered Persistent Threat Detection System (PTDS) is supposed to provide long-endurance intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications at a low cost.

The U.S. Army has been using these around-the-clock systems in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2004 – they're up to at least 37. That number is increasing. This past April the Pentagon announced pouring up to $1 billion more for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance gear in Afghanistan, mostly in the form of balloon mounted cameras and aerostats. A cheaper alternative to drones, the tethered blimps may also deter insurgents from planting make-shift bombs, a rising problem in Afghanistan.

“When daisy chained together throughout a battlespace it soaks up the terrain and becomes eyes in the sky,” says Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.

Photo: U.S. Army



Sanswire-TAO STS-111

This, um, unusually shaped blimp (111-foot long, 11-foot tall) is designed to wiggle through the wind more easily than a clunky round airship, thanks to its multisegmented body. The flying silver worm is propelled by helium in the first segment, and can deliver its payload via an air drop system that separates from the airship.

We haven't seen much new activity around the STS-111 since it its first test-flight in 2009, but Sanswire has several other elongated airships in the making, including the Argus One, the SkySat and the Stratellite.

Photo: Sanswire



Pelican

The Aeroscraft, touting ship-like payloads and helicopter-like operations, is designed to be a blimp that acts like a U-Haul. Need to transport 500 tons of troops and cargo? Sure. No airstrip? No problem. The Pelican would be able to land anywhere on land or water, its army unit ready to fight within six hours. This "tri-phibian" (air, land, sea) project was based on Darpa's Walrus program, which was cancelled in 2006. But the aviation technology company Aeros is determined to keep hope alive with Pelican. A (relatively) small prototype, supposed to carry a mere 60 tons, is due to fly sometime by the end of 2013.

Photo: Aeros

[buglerbilly]

DATE:01/08/11

SOURCE:Flight International

ISIS poised to become the ultimate eye in the sky

By Stephen Trimble

About a decade ago the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) conceived of a new kind of radar antenna.

Though the invention of active electronically-scanned arrays (AESA) had already revolutionised surveillance, by transforming a single radar antenna into hundreds of coordinated transmit and receive (T/R) modules, DARPA wanted to reduce the size of the T/R module even further.

Instead of a roughly 7.62cm- long module, the agency wanted something closer to a microchip, which it named Lightfoot.

A single Lightfoot chip would emit a signal with only one-tenth of the power of a module-sized transmitter-receiver, but it could also be built for a fraction of the cost.

The cheaper, lighter and more flexible material promised jaw-dropping possibilities, such as constructing AESA arrays larger than office buildings.


© Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin's ISIS airship is to be equipped with a "radar of unprecedented proportions"

Radar signal strength is a function of power and aperture size. An integrated antenna so large can spot a person walking down the street nearly 200 miles away.

However, most of the publicly-known applications for the Lightfoot radar technology have disappeared, including the ill-fated Space-Based Radar programme.

One surviving programme, however, is perhaps the most ambitious - Lockheed Martin's Integrated Sensor is Structure (ISIS) airship.

In the normally dry budget documents released by the US Department of Defense, the ISIS is described as packing a "radar of unprecedented proportions".

At full scale, the airship's radar will measure 6,000m².

By comparison, the aperture on the Northrop Grumman E-8C joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS), which is still the US Air Force's primary and largest sensor for detecting moving targets on the ground, is less than 5m².

The aperture on ISIS raises the number of T/R components by several orders of magnitude.

Most AESAs measure the amount of T/R modules in hundreds or low thousands, but the ISIS array will be filled with four million such components on microchips.

This ultra-high frequency (UHF) and X-band antenna will be stored inside a stratospheric-roaming airship capable of staying airborne for up to 10 years, without landing to refuel.

Instead, the ISIS carries a bank of solar panels on top to recharge the fuel cells powering the sensor and the vehicle's propulsion system. To keep the airship as light as possible, ISIS also introduces a new composite-laminate fabric with an extremely high strength-to-weight ratio.

Even so, the sensor itself will form 30% of the total mass of the airship.

The system is designed to perform at least three different functions. It should detect moving targets out in the open in the air or on the ground with its X-band antenna, and find stationary targets hidden under camouflage nets or a dense canopy with the radar's UHF frequency.

DARPA launched the ISIS programme in 2005, but the USAF plans to take it over, starting in 2014.

In 2009, an industry team, including Lockheed's airship designers at Skunk Works and Raytheon's radar engineers, beat a Northrop Grumman team for a $400 million contract to design and demonstrate a sub-scale prototype system.

The ISIS demonstrator is now scheduled to make its maiden flight in late 2013, from Lockheed's airship manufacturing base in Akron, Ohio.

The vehicle will be steered overland to the tip of the Florida Keys, where it will remain perched for a flight test period of about three months. Afterward, the vehicle will be at the disposal of US Southern and Northern Commands for a period of about nine months.

It could be used in Southern Command's counter-narcotics operations over the Caribbean, or the border patrols of Northern Command.

The demonstrator should be followed after 2015 with a full-scale operational system, but the USAF has not yet committed funding.

The performance by the demonstrator will likely make the difference, as the USAF begins to consider its budget priorities in the second half of the decade.

Lockheed and DARPA are approaching the demonstration flight carefully.

Although the flight was originally scheduled to begin in 2012, the timeline had slipped by last year, to March 2013.

Earlier this year, however, programme officials decided to delay the maiden flight by another six months.

The delay will allow Lockheed's suppliers to complete bench tests on key radar components before buying materials for production, Lockheed said.

• Click through a DARPA presentation on the ISIS programme, from 2009

http://www.flightglobal.com/isis

[buglerbilly]

New Type of Flying Vehicle in Development

(Source: Voice of America; issued July 30, 2011)



A California company is developing a new type of airship for transporting cargo and, possibly, passengers. It is not an airplane and not a blimp, but has elements of both. The vehicle uses new technology and has commercial and military applications.

The new flying ship from the Aeros Corporation is called an Aeroscraft, and is designed to carry more than 50 tons of cargo and make deliveries thousands of kilometers away.

A demonstration model is being built outside Los Angeles, with funding from the U.S. Defense Department. It's in a hangar the Navy once used for its helium-gas-filled surveillance blimps. The test vehicle is 75 meters long and 30 meters wide, and should be ready to fly late next year.

Edward Pevzner of Aeros says it will get to hard-to-reach places.

"[This vehicle is ideal for] the north of Canada, Alaska, where big oil and gas exploration is going on, same as the Amazon region, or the continent of Africa, which is very poorly developed," said Pevzner.

Aeronautical engineer Tim Kenny says the key to the system is a new technology that allows the craft to go up or down without removing or adding weight, as is required on conventional airships. Unlike blimps, this craft requires no ground crew. And unlike blimps, it is not always lighter than air. Kenny says it is sometimes lighter and sometimes heavier than the air around it.

"The whole shape will be filled with helium throughout the whole vehicle, and then internal to that, we'll have the variable buoyancy system," Kenny explained.

The helium provides lift for the craft to go up, and when the helium is compressed, the craft loses its buoyancy and can land. Control and propulsion are provided by propeller-engines powered by aviation fuel. Kenny says the craft's light weight and rigid structure are made possible by new technology.

"Advancements in composites have really motivated and moved this industry a lot farther along," Kenny noted. "They're able to combine composites to aluminum and build lightweight structural components."

The demonstration model should fly by late next year. If it works as planned, even bigger versions may be on the market in a few years.

The U.S. military is interested in the ship's potential. So is industry. Commercial applications include moving turbines to hard-to-reach wind farms that generate electric power. The company says once the ships have proved their mettle hauling cargo, modified versions could also be built to ferry passengers.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Laser Comms for Blue Devil Surveillance Airship

Posted by Graham Warwick at 8/4/2011 4:50 PM CDT

Looks like the US Air Force's Blue Devil 2 large surveillance airship could become the first ISR platform to be deployed operationally with a high-bandwidth laser communications system to downlink multi-gigabits of sensor data.

A special notice issued by DARPA reveals the 350ft-long Blue Devil 2 will be equipped with optical communications terminals being produced by AOptix Technologies for DARPA's Free Space Optical Experimental Network Experiment (FOENEX) program. These terminals can transmit data at up to 10Gbps over ranges up to 200km, according to AOptix.


Graphic: MAV6

The optionally manned Blue Devil 2 is to be deployed to Afghanistan, where it will stay aloft for up to a week at a time, carrying a 2,500lb payload of more than a dozen wide-area surveillance, full-motion video and signals-intelligence sensors, with an airborne supercomputer to enable automated cueing between sensors.

DARPA's special notice reveals the agency is to buy three additonal FOENEX optical modems from John Hopkins University's Apllied Physics Laboratory (APL) and upgrade them to 40Gbps. These additional modems are to be delivered to the USAF's Big Safari office for the Blue Devil 2 program, to support independent test and evaluation in the fall.

The special notice also reveals the Blue Devil 2 program bought the FOENEX optical terminals from AOptix not understanding it also needed the optical modems from APL to get robust communication performance. According to the notice the modem provides automatic gain control and forward error correction to enable error-free comms even in turbulent atmospheric conditions.

Free-space optical communications will be integrated with lower-capacity radio-frequency links to provide a robust network capability previously demonstrated in flight under DARPA's ORCA (Optical RF Communications Adjunct) program.

[buglerbilly]

DATE:05/08/11

SOURCE:Flight International

Airship resurgence faces pivotal year

By Stephen Trimble

By the time this article appears, a new airship design supported by US military funding may have become the second to complete its first flight event this year.

A third airship programme is trailing a few months behind, with at least two more to enter flight testing within two years.

The resurgence of the buoyant aircraft type has been sudden, and the range of new designs diverse.

They span the range of altitude from 20,000ft (6,090m) to the stratosphere, of missions from surveillance to cargo, of lifting power from conventional to hybrid, of crewing from optionally-piloted to fully unmanned - and of endurance, from a few weeks to a decade.

Military spending leaves no doubt about the sincerity of the military's interest.


© Lockheed Martin
The Lockheed P791 hybrid airship (above) was defeated by Northop's SkyTug for the LEMV contract

In barely more than five years, a total of more than $1.13 billion has been invested in the US military's four biggest airship programmes, with a $149 million contract awarded to the Lockheed Martin high altitude airship (HAA) in 2005.

The US also handed $400 million to Lockheed for the Integrated Sensor Is the Structure (ISIS) in 2009, $500 million to Northrop Grumman in 2010, for the long-endurance multi-intelligence vehicle (LEMV) and $80 million to start-up MAV6, for the Blue Devil Block II airship.

Beyond those programmes are several groups working on smaller contracts, or still looking for support.

These include two new hybrid airships still looking for a commercial or military customer: Aeros Aeroscraft and the Lockheed/Aviation Capital Enterprises (ACE) SkyTug.

The latter is based on the Lockheed P791 hybrid airship, which was defeated by Northrop for the LEMV contract.

So far, military officials have not committed to continue any single programme beyond the prototype and demonstration phase.

Untethered, manned airships were once valued patrol vessels in the military inventory, but largely disappeared about 55 years ago as fixed-wing patrol aircraft reached maturity.

In the last decade, unmanned aircraft systems have redefined the expectations for long-endurance flights.

Frank Pace, president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI), recalled a time in the early 1990s when the company had to persuade the US Air Force that the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) should be designed with 24h endurance, not 10h as the Air Force requested.

Now military officials in every branch want even more endurance than the 36h flying range of Northrop's RQ-4 Global Hawk.

The new objective for several development projects is to keep an aircraft on patrol for at least several days, if not weeks.

Options for meeting this ultra-long range requirement include hydrogen-powered fixed-wing UAVs, including the AeroVironment Global Observer and Phantom Ray. But the military also has funded Lockheed's HAA to meet the same requirement, leading to the high-altitude long-endurance demonstrator (HALE-D) taking the skies on 20 March.



Designed to carry a 226kg (500lb) payload with a 3kW onboard power supply, HALE-D was expected to demonstrate the feasibility of an airship performing a communications relay mission.

The airship's first flight, however, ended less than 3h after it began, due to an anomaly that is still being investigated.

The airship reached only a little higher than half the objective altitude of 60,000ft, before being commanded to descend.

Its payload was still transmitting data to the ground station even after the vehicle landed atop a patch of trees in southwest Pennsylvania.

PARTIAL SUCCESS

Lockheed considers the flight a partial success, as the vehicle demonstrated both lift-off and a functioning payload.

The HALE-D is unusual, in that it is as an airship designed to fly above 60,000ft, but it is otherwise a conventional blimp that uses lighter-than-air gas as a lifting mechanism.

Such airships are limited by physics to lifting payloads that weigh less than the amount of air displaced by the gas envelope.

Lighter-than-air craft are also more difficult to handle on the ground, as winds can complicate the process of landing and unloading passengers or payload.

The alternative to these airships is a hybrid that relies on some combination of aerostatic, buoyant and aerodynamic forces to generate lift. Such hybrid airships have existed for nearly a century, but have seen a recent surge in innovation.

A new design of hybrid air vehicles mixes elements of a buoyant airship and a fixed-wing aircraft for lift, and a hovercraft for taxiing on the ground.

The design stems from the work of Roger Munk, an airship pioneer who died last year.

After HALE-D's first flight, the second airship scheduled to follow is the Northrop/Hybrid Air Vehicles' (HAV's) LEMV.

Munk founded UK-based Hybrid and spent a decade promoting the hybrid airship design, but died just a few months before it was selected by the US Army to perform a $500 million demonstration.

In late June, Northrop announced it had started inflating the first of 19 sections within the aluminium hull of the LEMV. Separately, the company had already received pylons, nacelles and production engines from German firm Centurion Engines (formerly Thielert).

As of late June, LEMV was still on track for first flight by late July or August. The location of the first flight is still undisclosed.

Northrop officials have discussed assembling the airship in either Tillamook, Oregon, or Lakehurst, New Jersey - both former airship bases.

Northrop vice president Alan Metzger, briefing reporters on LEMV at the Paris air show in June, declined to confirm the location.

The Northrop LEMV is still based on the hybrid design pioneered by Munk - and still bears his mark. Munk's contoured and flattened hull is still present, with a pair of longitudinal side lobes.

Unlike many previous hybrid airships, the LEMV does not have a circular cross-section. Its more elliptical shaping is designed to provide lift similar to an aircraft wing.

Indeed, the LEMV relies on aerodynamic shaping to generate nearly half of the vehicle's lift, with the helium-filled gas envelope providing the rest.

Underneath each side lobe is a pair of air cushions, which are intended to greatly simplify ground operations.

The air cushions help to moor the aircraft on land by sucking down on to the surface, eliminating the need to tie down the aircraft with ropes.

"Hybrid airships have been around a long time," Metzger said in June. "But there really hasn't been one built in modern times of this magnitude."

Following a roughly three-month period of flight tests, Northrop plans to deliver the LEMV to the US Army's Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) later this year.

The army intends to deploy the LEMV to Afghanistan, where it will instantly become one of the most capable intelligence-gathering assets in the country.

Northrop estimates that a single LEMV airship can perform the work of 15 equivalent fixed-wing medium-altitude aircraft.

Its intelligence payload includes nine independent systems, including a communications interceptor, four electro-optic/infrared cameras, three communications relay antennas and a synthetic aperture radar for ground moving target indication with 360º coverage.

LEMV, however, may not be the only new airship deployed to Afghanistan early next year.

The air force has quietly funded a more conventional airship - the M1400 - under the Blue Devil Block II programme.

It is being developed by US-based firm MAV6, a defence company now headed by David Deptula, a former lieutenant general who served as deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance until retiring in December.

Neither Northrop nor MAV6 officials consider themselves in competition with the other, although both vehicles are designed to provide a similar multi-intelligence capability at medium altitude. That is where the similarities end.

The M1400 "is based on a conventional lighter-than-air airship", Deptula said. For MAV6, the objective is drive a new revolution in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability, not in airship design.

The air force intends to deploy to the M1400 early next year to Afghanistan with a variety of sensors - including possibly wide-area airborne surveillance systems, such as the Sierra Nevada Gorgon Stare.

Deptula envisions that the Blue Devil Block II programme can evolve into much more than just another medium-altitude ISR platform with longer endurance.

With computing power equivalent to 2,000 single-core servers stored onboard, the MAV6 vision for the M1400 is to become the central node in the air force's constellation of surveillance and intelligence aircraft.

FILTER MEANINGLESS INFORMATION

In this vision, surveillance platforms including the RQ-4, E-8C, LEMV, MQ-9 and others would transmit sensor data directly - via line-of-sight link - to Blue Devil, which would use its onboard servers to process the data and filter out meaningless information.

The remainder would be sent to ground stations, reducing the need for increasingly valuable bandwidth capacity.

"People are just beginning to realise the tsunami of data coming off these platforms," Deptula said.

[buglerbilly]

Post moved, wrong thread!

[buglerbilly]

MAV6 Selects Rockwell Collins for Blue Devil Block II Program

(Source: Rockwell Collins; issued August 17, 2011)

WASHINGTON --- Rockwell Collins is playing a key role on the U.S. Air Force Blue Devil Block II unmanned aerial system (UAS) by providing a full suite of systems that will enable the 335-foot-long airship to provide persistent surveillance for the military.

The U.S. Air Force awarded the $86.2 million Blue Devil Block II development contract to MAV6, a defense technology company, who chose Rockwell Collins to equip the airship with a flight control system, vehicle control system and radios. In addition, Rockwell Collins’ networking solutions will provide real-time, ad hoc communications capability for the program. Rockwell Collins will also provide the ground control station leveraging capabilities from the company’s Simulation & Training Solutions business for the Blue Devil Block II program.

“The Blue Devil Block II provides a surveillance network that will coordinate with other airships and UAVs for full continuous coverage over a large area,” said Dave Vos, senior director of UAS and Control Technologies for Rockwell Collins. “We are combining solutions from our broad portfolio of communication and navigation and control systems offerings for this program.”

Rockwell Collins delivers comprehensive communication, navigation and flight control capabilities for the UAS market in the U.S. and throughout the world. The Blue Devil Block II is the latest UAS platform program Rockwell Collins will provide with reliable, cost-effective solutions.

Rockwell Collins is a pioneer in the development and deployment of innovative communication and aviation electronic solutions for both commercial and government applications. Our expertise in flight deck avionics, cabin electronics, mission communications, information management, and simulation and training is delivered by 20,000 employees, and a global service and support network that crosses 27 countries.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

New aerostat to protect troops in Afghanistan

August 29, 2011



Carolina Unmanned Vehicles, Inc. (CUV), Raleigh North Carolina, announces an order for a new version of their Lightweight Aerostat System (LAS). The new LAS, being procured by Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in support of the US Army Rapid Equipping Force (REF), will become part of an Aerostat Deception System (ADS) that simulates an Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capability for small tactical units in Afghanistan and other locations.

The REF mission is to rapidly provide urgent capabilities to the US Army forces employed globally by harnessing current and emerging technologies in order to improve operational effectiveness. The LAS-ADS consists of an ISR deception payload attached under a small specially designed tethered blimp, called a Helikite, and a trailer Carrier that stores the Helikite and the required winch, sensors and helium tanks. CUV will provide the aerostats and all ground operating equipment while GTRI will develop the deception payloads. The LAS-ADS blimp can fly at 1000 feet for low cost, long term coverage for 24 hours a day for a week or more without maintenance or downtime. LAS-ADS will be tested by GTRI and the Army, and if found suitable, will be deployed to Afghanistan for further operational evaluation.

Traditional aerostats cannot operate in high winds unless fairly large, typically with 200 Lb of lift or more. This large size makes them unsuitable for deployment to small isolated bases. LAS uses the patented Helikite lifting aerostat from Allsopp Helikites of Great Britain. Helikites have lifting surfaces that generate aerodynamic lift to support the blimp in winds which would drive traditional designs into the ground. With the Helikite LAS can be smaller and more mobile than traditional aerostat systems yet still operate in high winds. The LAS-ADS will be able to fly in 70 knot wind. With superior mobility, mission utility and adverse weather capability, LAS still requires only two people for all operations. Versions of LAS are suitable for surveillance / security, communications relay and research for Defense and Homeland Security missions. It operates for weeks at a time at a fraction of the cost of comparable aircraft or Unmanned Air Vehicles. CUV has previously developed versions of LAS for the USAF, Sandia National Laboratories, and a large defense contractor.

Source: Carolina Unmanned Vehicles

[buglerbilly]

WSGI gives update on Argus One UAV testing

August 30, 2011



World Surveillance Group Inc. (WSGI), a developer of lighter-than-air unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and related technologies, announced today that the Argus One airship successfully passed the physical inspection and analysis conducted by the flight safety board at the Yuma proving ground facility. The safety board initially approved the Argus One airship and accompanying onboard systems for tethered flights and, after successful demonstration of tethered flights, the Argus One was approved for free flight tests.

Unfortunately following such approvals, the Company was unable to conduct flight testing of its Argus One UAV at the Yuma proving ground facilities due to an unforeseen incident that occurred while maneuvering the UAV into its hangar. The events, which resulted in minor damage to the envelope of the UAV, were caused by unexpected strong wind gusts that hit the Argus One UAV broadside while the airship was being moved into its hangar due to the weather. The resulting tear to the airship envelope was unrelated to flight capabilities of the airship itself or the accompanying onboard systems.

The Company is working with its technical partner, Eastcor Engineering, to repair and enhance the airship's envelope and expects to complete such repairs by September 9th. WSGI is currently discussing new flight test dates with the flight operators at the Yuma proving ground facility, anticipates finalizing these dates shortly and expects to return to Yuma in September or October. Meanwhile, the Company plans to continue flight testing the Argus One in Easton, MD in preparation for the upcoming Yuma flight exercise.

The Company will provide additional information on flight testing in Easton, MD as well as the definitive dates to conduct additional testing at Yuma.

WSGI's President and Chief Executive Officer, Glenn D. Estrella, stated, "While we are very disappointed at the unfortunate incident that resulted in our inability to execute the flight tests we had planned for Yuma, we remain optimistic about the unique capabilities of our Argus One airship design based on the results from our numerous Easton flight tests. We are actively in discussions with the directors at Yuma to reschedule new testing dates to get back to Yuma as soon as possible and will continue our testing in Easton in the interim."

Source: WSGI

[buglerbilly]

Via DiD........

Time for TARS Along USA’s Southern Borders

Sep 05, 2011 15:21 EDT


TARS, deployed

An aerostat is a lighter-than-air craft that relies on a ground tether for movement and sometimes for electrical power as well, as opposed to blimps which are self-powered, free-flying craft. The US military has slowly come around to the benefits of aerostats in an era that requires persistent surveillance, but features high fuel prices.

The RAID program has morphed into the tower-centric GBOSS, and progress on the naval front remains slow, but the $1+ billion JLENS advanced aerial surveillance program is still moving ahead, and Lockheed Martin has delivered its PTDS aerostats to the front lines for ground surveillance duties. TARS is also part of this mix, with several firms participating in the program…

What is TARS?

TARS is a counter-drug program that’s currently funded by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counter Narcotics, Counter Proliferation, and Global Threats. The US military has been using TARS aerostats since the 1980s, and before 1992, the TARS network was in the hands of the US Air Force, Customs Service and Coast Guard. A 1992 bill transferred management of the system to the Pentagon/Air Force.

Both USNORTHCOM and USSOUTHCOM undertake Counterdrug/ Counter-Narco Terrorism (CD/CNT) missions around the traditional drug-runner flight paths along the Mexican border, the Florida Straits, and the southwest Puerto Rico/ Caribbean regions, even using E-2 Hawkeye AWACS aircraft in the course of their duties. TARS will not replace other methods, but it will supplement them with an around-the-clock component. As a bonus, a radar with these detection capabilities can also notice items like low-flying cruise missiles, and so TARS is explicitly tasked with contributing to NORAD’s air defense as a secondary mission.

TARS consists of 4 major parts: the aerostat and airborne support equipment; the radar payload; the tether and winch system; and the ground systems.

The program uses 2 sizes of helium-filled aerostat made by TCOM or ILC Dover: one is 275,000 cubic feet in size (186’ long x 62.5’ in diameter x fin span 68.6’), while larger aerostats are 420,000 cubic feet (208.5’ x 69.5’ x 75.5’). The Teldar fabric hulls contain 2 chambers separated by a gas-tight fabric partition: the upper chamber is filled with helium, while the lower chamber is a pressurized air compartment with a sophisticated system of sensors, blowers and valves to control the air pressure. Either type can operate up to 15,000 feet, but 12,000 feet mean sea level is the norm.

Aerostat power is developed by an on-board, 400 Hz generator, fed by a 100-gallon diesel fuel tank. All systems, including the generator, are controlled via an aerostat telemetry link. A pressurized windscreen compartment underneath the aerostat contains and protects the radar, a Lockheed Martin L-88. It’s designed to filter out ground clutter and detect “low-level targets,” from low-flying aircraft to speedboats, and has a published detection radius of 200 miles. That will vary, of course, depending on aerostat altitude and the size/composition of the target.

Operators launch the TARS aerostat from a large circular launch pad containing a fixed or mobile mooring tower, depending on the site configuration. The mooring system contains a large winch with 25,000 feet of tether cable. All radar data is transmitted to the ground station, then digitized and fed to the various control centers for display. TARS sites also field a doppler weather radar, wind profiler, and ground weather station, which complement forecasts and weather warnings from the Air Force Weather Agency.

TARS’ contract management office is located in Newport News, VA, and the logistics hub is located in El Paso, TX Operational sites are listed as:

• Yuma, AZ
• Fort Huachuca, AZ
• Cudjoe Key, FL
• Deming, NM
• Lajas, Puerto Rico
• Marfa, TX
• Eagle Pass, TX
•Rio Grande City, TX

Aerostat maker ILC Dover is a Lockheed Martin STAR supplier, and TARS overall is touted as a Lockheed product. In 2000, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Akron won a USAF contract to upgrade 6 Tethered Aerostat Radar System sites.

ITT Systems Division is the TARS support integrator.

Note that the aerostat TARS systems should not be confused with BAE’s TARS reconnaissance pod, which also performs surveillance, but does so while attached to a fighter jet.

Contract & Key Events


TARS aerostat

Aug 31/11: ITT Systems Division of Colorado Springs, CO receives a $32.2 million firm-fixed-price contract modification to provide resources for the Tethered Aerostat Radar Systems Program at 9 locations throughout the United States. Air Combat Command AMIC/PKC in Newport News, VA manages the contract (FA4890-08-C-0005, PO 0055).

[buglerbilly]

Indian Report Criticises Air Force Use of Aerostats

Posted on September 22, 2011 by The Editor


India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has criticised the nation’s Air Force for failing to keep two Israeli-supplied aerostat-based radars in operational condition. The equipment was acquired for a combined total of 676 million Indian Rupees ($14 million).

One of the systems was damaged in 2009, while deployed on India’s western border, after air force personnel failed to properly monitor forecast weather conditions. The damaged sensor is unlikely to be available for another two years.

Meanwhile, the fabric on the other aerostat has started decaying, leading to the leakage of excessive amounts of helium.

The CAG said the service’s failure to sign a deal with Israel-based Rafael to fix the problem led to it spending an extra Rs10 million ($200,000) per year on gas supplies.

“The case shows improper planning and an unprofessional approach on the part of the Indian air force, for optimal utilisation of a system that was procured at a huge cost,” the CAG said.

Source: Flight Global

[buglerbilly]

Military Struggles to Find Helium for Spy Blimp Surge

By Dawn Lim and Noah Shachtman September 22, 2011 | 6:30 am



Storm in a teacup story............the USA was selling Helium at rock bottom prices just a year or so ago, then the surge hits them and hey presto they are in the smelly stuff having disposed of reserves previously.................the lack of strategic reserve and containers is the key to the problem not the lack of helium per se.

The U.S. military is sending so many spy blimps to Afghanistan that “industry cannot keep up with the increased demand” for helium and the containers that hold the gas.

That’s according to documents from the Defense Logistics Agency, the Pentagon office responsible for keeping vital supplies flowing to the warzone.

With their ability to stay in the air for days at a time — and hold more spy gear than any drone — aerostats and airships are quickly becoming surveillance tools of choice in the Afghan War. The military carried out three aerostat surges between last fall and this summer; several dozen are deployed in Afghanistan now. But really, that’s just a scene-setter. Early next year, the U.S. military is planning to send not one, but two “freakishly large” airships to the skies above Afghanistan.

If the giant blimps can get the helium and helium containers they need to fly, that is.

When one of those airships, the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, needed its gas, it ran into a problem. LEMV-builder Northrop Grumman “could not obtain the helium and/or the large number of bulk containers needed for its initial fill and as such, required emergency support,” according to a Defense Logistics Agency contracting document.

To meet LEMV’s “huge gaseous helium requirements” in time, DLA Energy couldn’t competitively bid out the 800,000 standard cubic feet of helium needed to fill up the “longer than a football field, taller than a seven-story building” airship.

DLA ran into similar bottlenecks trying to fill up the smaller, tethered aerostats used in Afghanistan to watch and listen for enemy action.

In justifications for “other than full and open competition,” DLA said that it wasn’t able to competitively bid out container lease contracts in the rush to keep the aerostats aloft. “Manufacturing new bulk helium ISO containers is a very lengthy process.”

“Industry cannot keep up with the increased demand for containers needed by the Army’s second and third Aerostat deployment surges,” the agency admitted in July.

In fact, sources familiar with the process tell Danger Room, when DLA originally issued a call for helium supplies to meet the airship and aerostat programs’ needs, nobody responded. The order was just too big. That forced the government to break up its helium order into smaller chunks.

Things aren’t dire — for now. Helium gas suppliers and producers were quick to tell Danger Room that government orders make up just a tiny fraction of the total demand for their helium, and that any increased demand from the military wasn’t hampering their ability to provide helium. A Northrop Grumman spokesperson claimed that helium shortages have not affected its LEMV program. DLA did not immediately respond to Danger Room’s questions.

But the cost of securing and processing helium has grown “substantially,” especially in the last five to 10 years, said Eric Bass, strategic product manager for helium at Linde North America. In at least the past four years, Linde has seen U.S. government demand for helium from its customers grow roughly about one to two percent each year. The largest helium sources in the world are rapidly reaching capacity.

Getting mega-blimps to landlocked Afghanistan is no cakewalk. Once filled, these spy blimps can’t be deflated at the risk of messing up their flight control surfaces. This means that helium either needs to be flown to a base where the blimps have to be filled up, or they have to be inflated in the U.S. and then shipped over to Afghanistan in a giant container.

And the military continues to march toward a future of spy blimps. A recent presolicitation calling for “unrestricted procurement for delivery” of high-purity helium said that contracts would be performed through 2017.

DLA Energy just increased its helium orders from one firm, Dubai-based Global Gases, by 50 percent — from two million cubic feet to three million. Phil Kornbluth, an executive vice president with Global Gases supplier Matheson Gas, says it’s a substantial increase.

“That’s heck of a lot of party balloons,” he tells Danger Room.

Photo: National Guard

[buglerbilly]

Look: Giant Spy Blimp Dwarfs an 18-Wheeler

By Noah Shachtman October 7, 2011 | 6:30 am



That teeny-weeny, toy-looking thing to the left? An 18-wheeler truck. The giant egg to the right? The biggest spy drone anyone has ever made.

The optionally manned airship — known by the cumbersome code name of “Blue Devil Block 2” — was first inflated with air in early September. Last week, at a hangar in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the blimp was filled with helium, and began to float.

By the middle of next year, the Air Force hopes, the airship will be hovering in the skies over Afghanistan, where it will use a supercomputer and a pile of surveillance gear to look down on the battlefield — 36 square miles at a time.

“It could change the nature of overhead surveillance,” said retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the former Air Force intelligence chief now in charge of Mav 6, the company building the blimp.

If the thing works as planned, it’ll park itself in the air for five days at a time, at a height of 20,000 feet or more. Wide-area cameras and advanced eavesdropping gear will be able to watch (and listen) to militant suspects for miles around. Information on their location will be beamed down to U.S. forces with a laser. Like everything else in this project, that laser will be gigantic.

For now, the challenge is keeping Blue Devil close to the ground. Six massive winches are keeping the 370-foot-long, 1.4 million-cubic-foot blimp from flying away.

Meanwhile, Mav 6 has begun a push on Capitol Hill to make sure Congressional support for the $211 million project doesn’t drift away, either. Blue Devil is one of two mega airship programs the military is funding. And in an increasingly-tight budget, Hill staffers are wondering whether that’s one too many.

[buglerbilly]

More info on this from Defense Update................

Giant Airship is Afloat: Blue Devil 2


The Blue Devil 2 airship is a 370 foot long, 1.500 million cubic feet large airship soon to deploy to support ground operations in Afghanistan. Photo via: Wired Danger Room

The 370-foot-long (123 m’), 1.4 million-cubic-foot (37,000 m3) blimp called ‘Blue devil 2′ is taking shape at a hangar in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. As the giant airship is being filled with helium, thus lighter than air, it becomes afloat inside the hangar. Once mission equipment is installed, the airship will begin its voyage to Afghanistan, where it will provide an unmanned platform for persistent surveillance and communications support assisting the ground forces. MAV-6 is the prime contractor for the $211 million ‘Blue devil 2′ program. (Wired Danger Room)

Blue Devil 2 is designed to support continuous missions of up to 216 hours (nine days) operating at an altitude of 20,000 ft, from where the airship, equipped with multiple ISR payloads, will covering an area of 36 square miles at a time, compared with about 16 square miles currently covered by ‘wide area airborne surveillance’ (WAAS) assets. Nine days is the maximum endurance achieved in optimal operating conditions. The actual mission endurance will be determined by environmental conditions in Afghanistan, including payload weight, winds, temperature, barometric pressure etc., The blimp is equipped with two ducted propellers and a rear maneuvering engine, all powered by a main diesel generator driving 120 KVA for propulsion and on board systems. The side motors are producing thrust for forward propulsion at a maximum airspeed of 90 knots, or offset wind effect; the rear motor is used to steering airship to maintain the required heading.

The blimp will be equipped with gondola shaped mission modules to be tailored for specific mission. The gondola has multiple attachments for 10- 40 sensors, including electro optical sensots (including wide area airborne surveillance multi-sensor, multi-spectral payloads), high definition motion video cameras, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) radar, communications systems, datalinks and high power supercomputer platform providing image processing, storage, retrieval and dissemination. On board processing will enable the Blue Devil 2 to retain the highest resolution and most detailed imagery without increasing total bandwidth consumption. In addition to storing data on board, the systems will be able to dump the entire imagery to the intelligence control hub, via wideband datalink. Other users will be able to obtain live imagery or past images for forensic analysis) on demand straight from the blimp, within 15 seconds, served via existing Rover or tactical networking. Different gondolas can be integrated into the Blue devil 2 platform in less than four hours.

The giant blimp will be able to remain on a mission for five days, with a gondola weighing 2,500 lb. (1.134 ton). Increasing the payload weight to 7,500 lb. (3.4 ton) will reduce mission endurance to three days.

An on-board supercomputer will gather, process and store the images collected and disseminate them to users on demand.

In paralel to the Air Forces’ Blue Devil 2 program, the U.S. Army is also planing to deploy an airship to Afghanistan, employing the British Hybrid Air vehicle design for the Northrop Grumman Long-Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) system. With a budget of $517 million LEMV is expected to cost twice as the MAV-6, but also offer a more versatile platform offering mission endurance of 21 days, complete runway independence and significantly larger area of authority covering up to 2,000 miles radius ofaction.

[buglerbilly]

Aerostat system detects cruise missiles and supports engagement



TEWKBURY, Mass., Oct. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company's (NYSE: RTN) aerostat system -- Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Elevated Netted Sensors (JLENS) -- recently completed a successful 14-day endurance test at a range in Utah demonstrating its readiness.

"Providing persistent surveillance for cruise missile defense is a very important capability of JLENS," said David Gulla, vice president for Global Integrated Sensors at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS). "This recent 14-day endurance test demonstrates JLENS' capability now to be airborne on station for an extended period performing its surveillance mission at lower costs than other systems and in a reliable manner. This test, along with others, is proving JLENS' value as a critical component of the larger integrated air and missile defense mission."

"While up for 14 days, JLENS tracked thousands of targets over a very wide area," said Mark Rose, Raytheon's program director for JLENS. "This test not only demonstrates the system's readiness, but also the significant capabilities it brings to the warfighter."

Fully Capable

Raytheon is conducting JLENS flight tests at the Utah Training and Test Range near Salt Lake City. The system is primarily designed to detect, track and support engagements of cruise missiles and other air breathing aircraft. JLENS is fully capable of detecting air, missile and surface threats on land and at sea. Providing reliable persistent surveillance -- staying aloft and operational for up to 30 days at a time -- is another important feature of the system.

The system, known as an "orbit," consists of two tethered 74-meter aerostats that can be elevated to 10,000 feet. One aerostat contains a surveillance radar that provides 360-degree coverage out for long distances over land and sea. The other aerostat lifts a fire control radar. Also, each of the aerostat platforms has the capability to integrate other communications and sensor systems.

[buglerbilly]

Recent Development Efforts for Military Airships: Summary

(Source: Congressional Budget Office; issued Nov. 2, 2011)

During the past decade's operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has come to rely heavily on the continuous or nearly continuous presence overhead of both manned and unmanned aircraft to support ground troops. Unmanned aircraft that remain aloft in particular locations (or "orbits") have been primarily used to provide timely information about activities on the ground and to attack ground targets on short notice. Most prominent among these aircraft are the Department of Defense's (DoD's) fleets of unmanned Predators, Reapers, and Global Hawks; however, satellites and manned conventional aircraft, including fighters and long-range bombers, have also contributed.

The demand for those so-called "persistent" or "loitering" missions has led the Air Force to substantially enlarge its fleet of unmanned aircraft, and the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to field or plan to field similar aircraft to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and light-attack capabilities of their own. Unmanned aircraft are particularly attractive for such missions because they can be designed to provide durations beyond the physical endurance of human air crews and because they do not put humans at risk during operations in potentially hostile airspace.

In light of the demand for aircraft capable of remaining aloft for long periods of time, considerable interest in airships as alternatives to conventional aircraft exists. Although unmanned airships are unproven, they have the potential to remain in the air for long periods—providing mission durations that are many times longer than would be practical for conventional aircraft. Consequently, the military services are exploring a variety of designs for unmanned airships capable of carrying ISR sensors.

The technology needed to field airships for ISR could also be applied to airships meant for airlift—that is, for the transportation of people, equipment, or other cargo. Whether airships designed to carry cargo would be manned or unmanned would depend on the specific missions they performed. Although the military services' investment in developing airships for airlift has been limited, several private companies are exploring potential designs or are in the process of building prototypes.

In this document, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examines the potential capabilities of airships for ISR and airlift missions. In brief, CBO finds that:

-- If the speed, payload, and endurance proposed for unmanned airships can be achieved, the resulting craft could serve effectively in the ISR and airlift roles;

-- Airships' performance characteristics would provide some advantages and suffer from some disadvantages relative to those of the conventional aircraft currently used for ISR and airlift missions; and

-- Airships would present new operational challenges such as greater sensitivity to weather conditions and the need to provide unique types of maintenance and support.

Because the development of the technology needed for modern military airships is at an early stage, in most cases cost estimates would be highly speculative; therefore, CBO does not examine the costs of airships here. Although CBO does compare the capabilities of airships to those of other aircraft, assessing cost-effectiveness would require analyzing costs as various technologies mature.

Click here for the full report (28 pages in PDF format) on the CBO website

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12479/11-01-Airships.pdf

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Blue Devil 2 Inflated

Posted by Graham Warwick at 11/21/2011 6:25 AM CST

Mav6 has released the first image of the hull of the US Air Force's Blue Devil 2 surveillance airship, which it calls the M1400. The composite image of the 370ft-long airship was taken in August after its initial inflation with air. Mav6 says the TCOM-built hull was inflated with helium in September and is now floating, anchored, in its hangar in North Carolina.


Photo: LeAnn Reed, Mav6

The US Army's persistent-surveillance airship, the Northrop Grumman Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), has also undergone inflation in a hangar at NAS Lakehurst, New Jersey, but we haven't seen any pictures yet.

The optionally piloted Blue Devil 2 is designed to stay aloft for almost a week carrying a 2,500lb payload of multiple wide-area, full-motion video and signals-intelligence sensors and a range of datalinks. Both airships are to be deploted to Afghanistan in 2012.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Army Wants Hand-Launched Blimps

Posted by Paul McLeary at 12/15/2011 2:20 PM CST



Big Army wants to go small. In keeping with its push to equip infantry squads with the communications and intelligence-gathering gear necessary to act (somewhat) autonomously, the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF) has issued a Request for Information looking for industry input for the development of a small aerostat that can be controlled by a hand held controller, and be launched and recovered in 20 minutes or less.

Since the request comes from the Rapid Equipping Force, not only does the Army want industry to ping them back right away, but they’re also looking for mature, non-developmental technologies. The RFI calls for a commercial off the shelf, or government off the shelf “modular compact helium filled aerostat and payload deployment system” that will give “small tactical units…an Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capability.”

The request also states that the Army is only interested in models that can fly (or float…) in any type of weather, during the day or night, and be able to stay airborne for a period of at least four days. And then there are the specifics. The system must weigh no more than 130 lbs., clock in at no more than 40 ft. long, 20 ft. tall, and 16 ft. in diameter, and weigh less than 2,500 lbs., including the deployment system. In keeping with the push for giving squad-sized units new intelligence gathering ability, the request says that the system should require “no more than 2-3 personnel at any time to perform any and all functions,” and the entire system, including the helium bottles, etc. must be transportable on one vehicle or trailer.

We know that the Army has deployed dozens of huge blimps to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade—and all of the big contractors have been fighting over the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to build, launch and maintain them. What about these relatively small blimps? They might not be as eye-popping as their older cousins, but they’ll certainly be cheaper and more numerous….and isn’t that what the new Army equipping strategy is all about?

[buglerbilly]

World Surveillance Group Demonstrates Argus One UAV for U.S. Department of Defense at the Nevada Test Site



KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 01/17/12 -- World Surveillance Group Inc. (OTCBB: WSGI), a developer of lighter-than-air unmanned aerial vehicles ("UAVs") and related technologies, announced today that the Company has completed initial demonstrations of its Argus One UAV to the U.S. Department of Defense ("DoD") at the U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Test Site ("N2S2"). The Argus One flight exercises were sponsored and coordinated by the DoD and executed by WSGI's technical partner, Eastcor Engineering ("ECE"). The recently held flight exercise is the first in a series of flight and testing activities planned for 2012. In preparation for subsequent DoD coordinated flights, the Argus One UAV has been re-stationed at the N2S2 facilities where the airship remains inflated inside a hangar facility for further testing, evaluation and demonstrations as weather conditions and scheduling permit.

The Argus One is a mid-altitude, lighter-than-air UAV designed to hover above the earth's surface for extended periods of time. The uniquely constructed low observable airship is designed to handle surface winds in a more efficient manner than traditional "blimp-like" airships, while delivering a cost-effective solution based on minimal ground and human infrastructure.

WSGI is currently awaiting proper clearances and approvals to release images and video footage from the flight exercise at N2S2. For more information on the Argus One UAV including images from previous flight exercises please visit www.wsgi.com/argus