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Airships / Blimps / Dirigibles (Lighter-Than-Air Craft)

When I was younger I ordered one of these:

http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3035220

It's a bag of imperfect solar panels, generally chipped and smashed during manufacture, although a few that appeared undamaged seemed to be included (e.g. perfect rectangles). They're of the shiny/crystalline patterned blue variety, so I think pretty high grade stuff, but hard to solder to (seems to need pretty high temperatures) and quite thin and fragile. My dad used 6 "halfs" (I think about 1.5"x1.5"), complete with a wooden box to hold it in (and perspex lid to let light in, with cotton wool underneath to protect the panels), which output 3V, and in sunlight was enough to drive my personal cassette recorder for listening to music outdoors :) I still have most of them, having not yet thought up a fun application. I just had the notion of some sort of little solar powered robot, though ;)
 
Hi Colin, Wow that scientificsonline thing is cool, when younger the most adventurous I got was sending off for some x-ray specs that would let me see through err, mmmh . . err yea really cool
:D
 
Back on thread; Airships are slow and predictable, if you knew what to look for you vould tell them from a genuine UFO
 
Colin said:
It's also worth noting that one of my stranger fantasies is to fly (sail?) around the world at a leisurely place in an airship :)
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me too! I was recently having a conversation with my dad about how weird it was that airships were so "out" (maybe to do with all the big disasters?). The orient express still runs, old ladies still go on cruises, so why not have luxurious dirigibles to take seriously long voyages on?
 
Playing devil's advocate...

Homo Aves said:
Back on thread; Airships are slow and predictable, if you knew what to look for you vould tell them from a genuine UFO
Click to expand...

...but if you knew what to look for it wouldn't be a UFO, because you'd know what it was, and if you didn't know what to look for it would be a unidentified flying object, because you couldn't identify it...

And how do we know that genuine UFOs don't move in a slow and predictable manner pretending to be airships?
 
Like they already do as aeroplanes??

I like the idea of long luxurious voyages on an airship...think of the fun you could have!
 
Faggus said:
me too! I was recently having a conversation with my dad about how weird it was that airships were so "out" (maybe to do with all the big disasters?). The orient express still runs, old ladies still go on cruises, so why not have luxurious dirigibles to take seriously long voyages on?
Click to expand...

I keep thinking that I should start an airship-based cruise company ;)
 
colin, you have the potential to be a proper entrepeneur! Start with ghost detection devices, move onto airships, and then you can fund Fortean expeditions!
 
I came across this thread and had to post...

For approximately 15 years of my childhood and early adolescence, my father was involved with a company that had built two dirigibles (they were non-rigid, helium filled blimps). The initial reason for him becoming involved with this company (actually it was three or four over the years, as ownership changed hands) was an idea that my dad had for a new type of large format display. You have to keep in mind that this was the early 80's to early 90's and the state of the art in blimp signs for most of that time was a lightbulb matrix (ala The Goodyear blimp), and LED technology hadn't yet come into it's own (as it is in the process of now).
My father's idea involved acrylic optical fiber (not communications grade glass fibers) arranged in in a matrix where an image could be projected on the end of the bundle and it would be reproduced at the other end, only larger. That's right, each fiber represented one pixel, and the final size for this sign was something like 30 feet high by 60 feet wide (the "launch grid" where all the fibers came together in a bundle was a solid block of epoxy and fiber optic approximately 9in by 9in or thereabouts the precise measurements elude me now as it's been years) each fiber had to be precisely spaced and precisely spaced...the math was horrendous.

Anyway, when they first flew the blimp with the operational sign system (there were two signs, one on either side of the blimp, each made up of three panels and capable of displaying still images or full motion video) over Seattle, all of the emergency services were flooded with calls, the local news agencies were flooded with calls and CNN even ran a story explaining what it was that people were seeing. It was initially flown at night (although it was capable of daylight presentation), and everybody and their brother that saw it, and didn't know what it was, thought it was some kind of UFO.

It amused me to know end when I was a kid, even though nobody in school believed me that my dad was the one responsible (the bastards!). Those of you living in New York might remember a blimp crashing into an apartment building in Manhattan...that was the same one. At that time, the company had sold advertising space to pepsico, and the fiber optic sign was painted with a daylight viewable image advertising Pizza Hut's "Bigfoot" pizza.

Anyway...sorry for the long story...

-Behemoth
 
Faggus, the idea of also doing Fortean expeditions with an airship has also crossed my mind ;) Now I just need to find the investors to provide money to buy/construct a luxury cruise airship...

Behemoth, that's a very interesting story, I wish I could have seen it (and the technology behind the fibre-optic scheme :) )
 
For anyone interested in trying to find out more about my story...the company that finally handled the blimp and sign technology was called US Lighter Than Air (or US-LTA) and it was based in Eugene Oregon...as of fairly recently, they are currently renting out machining equipment and space...the sign technology didn't pan out..a variant of the blimp sign technology was put in place at the memorial coliseum in Fort Wayne Indiana (circa 1985). You can try doing a patent search for Lee Marlo Harris or US-LTA...you might get some results..

-Behemoth
 
Security blimp tested in Washington skies

Wednesday, September 29, 2004 Posted: 1437 GMT (2237 HKT)

The Defense Department's test blimp patrols the Washington skies Wednesday.


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Here's a head-turner for a security-nervous city: A large white object was spotted in the skies above the nation's capital in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday.

Pentagon police said the Defense Department is testing a security blimp -- fully equipped with surveillance cameras. The white blimp was spotted early Wednesday morning hovering at various times over the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.

The 178-foot-long device, which is expected to remain in the skies until Thursday, is conducting a mission for the Defense Department.

Authorities say the airship is equipped with infrared cameras designed to provide real-time images to military commanders on the ground. The equipment on the blimp already is being used to protect troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Army says the device will make at least one 24-hour flight in the District of Columbia area. It has been in the region since last week, and is also being used for test runs over the U.S. Marine Corps Base in nearby Quantico, Virginia, and the Chesapeake Bay.
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http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/09/29/security.blimp.ap/index.html
 
Blimp networks guard troops
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/1004/web-blimp-10-08-04.asp
Blimp networks guard troops
BY Frank Tiboni
Published on Oct. 8, 2004

Army officials turned to towers and unmanned blimps equipped with networked sensors to help protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, service officials said this week.

The towers and unmanned blimps, called aerostats, worked so well at detecting and identifying enemy forces and objects that Defense Department officials want to buy more of them. "We wouldn't have gotten the funding if it wasn't successful," said Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, director of Army systems management in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.

Sorsenson spoke Oct. 7 at a Pentagon media briefing.

Army officials obtained $38 million in fiscal 2004 for 22 towers and aerostats
for surveillance use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 84-foot-towers and 15-meter aerostats use the Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID) system to monitor the perimeter of the service's bases there, said Col. Kurt Heine, project manager of the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor, whose program oversees the force protection effort.

The RAID system consists of towers, aerostats, sensors and an operations center. The towers and aerostats carry an electro-optical and infrared sensor that detects enemy forces and objects at day or night. The sensors obtain the images then transmit them via a radio frequency to an operations center, which sends them via a network to warfighters and analysts for review and action, Heine said.

The towers and aerostats provide soldiers and commanders with a more persistent capability than most unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS) and manned aircraft because they do not require human operators, need less maintenance and fly longer. But they do not stand or fly as high as aircraft, Sorenson and Heine said.

They said towers, aerostats, UAVs blimps and aircraft each possess technology advantages and disadvantages. They said they give commanders options for many force protection missions.

Army officials experimented with a manned blimp equipped with the RAID system last week in Washington for homeland defense missions. They spent $500,000 to lease a blimp and an aircrew that conducted a 24-hour flight over the Pentagon for security and also supported a joint-force protection mission, Sorenson and Heine said.
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More military blimps to keep an eye out for:

January 17, 2006


Small Company Aims to Soar Above Lockheed to Win Blimp Contract

# The firm is confident the Pentagon will pick its design for a craft to move troops and cargo.

By Peter Pae, Times Staff Writer

It's the blimp industry's version of David and Goliath.

An obscure Tarzana firm run by Russian emigres is locked in competition with Lockheed Martin Corp., the world's largest defense contractor, to win a Pentagon contract to build 900-foot- long, blimp-like aircraft to move cargo and troops into combat zones.

Worldwide Aeros, which makes blimps used for flying billboards, generated plenty of buzz in aerospace circles last summer when it and Lockheed each landed $3-million contracts from the Pentagon to do preliminary design work.

The Pentagon's advanced research arm expects to pick the winning design in September and award a $100-million contract for a prototype airship. The winner then has a chance to bid on a blimp production contract potentially worth $11 billion over 30 years.

"In reality we don't feel Lockheed is our technical competitor," said Igor Pasternak, 41, Worldwide Aeros' founder. "There is only one solution, and we have that one solution," the Russian-trained scientist insisted.

Pasternak's company "wrote a proposal that seemed outstanding," said Norman J. Mayer, a veteran airship designer for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and the Navy, who helped the Pentagon evaluate the blimp proposals. "They were very serious about what they were trying to do. Time will tell how well they do it."

Winning will not be easy.

Lockheed farmed out the blimp job to its Skunkworks unit, the legendary aircraft design house in Palmdale that has developed many of the nation's most advanced aircraft, including the SR-71 and U-2 spy planes.

By contrast, Worldwide Aeros, with 40 employees, expects $10 million in revenue this year from selling blimps for advertising, including promoting MasterCard and Spalding sporting goods.

Pasternak has built about 30 blimps in the U.S. His blimps cost about $3 million each; components are made in Tarzana, then assembled in hangars in San Bernardino or Palmdale.

But Pasternak said he had faced bigger challenges than outwitting Lockheed, including persuading six of his employees and their families to flee Russia with him in 1993.

Pasternak grew up in Lviv, a Ukrainian city of 700,000 near the Polish border.

After getting a degree in civil engineering, he formed his own company in 1988 and began working on a Soviet project to develop mammoth airships to transport cargo to the remote Siberian oil fields. It was one of the first private aeronautics ventures permitted under Mikhail S. Gorbachev's perestroika reforms, Pasternak said.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Pasternak's investment capital dried up. With growing anti-Semitism in his country, Pasternak said, he and his colleagues fled Russia and emigrated to the U.S.

Eventually, he was able to persuade several investors to fund his aerospace company based on his experience making blimps in Russia.

The Pentagon hopes that these new airships can help move U.S. troops more quickly. Currently, personnel and equipment travel separately; heavy weapons, such as tanks, are transported by ship, which can take more than a month.

Ultimately, the Pentagon envisions buying 14 to 16 heavy-lift airships, each capable of carrying 500 tons of cargo and passengers.

The airships would travel up to 138 mph, with a range of more than 10,000 miles.

In addition to increased cargo capacity, the airships would give the U.S. military additional flexibility in moving troops closer to the battlefield because in theory the craft could bypass ports and runways. The airships would have only one requirement: an open landing field about two to three times their size.

"It can totally change how you conduct warfare," Pasternak said of the concept.

He envisions the aircraft as not a blimp or an airplane but as a hybrid of the two. The vehicle would rise into the air thanks to nonflammable helium, much as a blimp does, but the bottom of its hull would act like a wing to give it additional lift and control, he said. The craft would be powered by propellers.

Pasternak contends that this new design would be easier to handle and that it could land under a pilot's control, without ground handlers having to pull on tethers as with conventional blimps. But the concept still faces several hurdles, analysts said.

Although engineers have decades of knowledge in developing airships, none has been built to carry the tonnage the Pentagon envisions for its project.

Moreover, the airships would be vulnerable to antiaircraft fire, not only because of their size but also because they would be flying at relatively low altitude of about 10,000 feet, bringing them within range of shoulder-fired missiles.

The challenges for the prevailing bidder will be immense. But win or lose, Pasternak sees the project as a means to a different end: to build commercial versions for carrying business cargo or even paying passengers.

His "cruise ship in the sky" would have hotel-like rooms, vast lobbies with viewing areas, a restaurant and space for about 180 passengers. It would fly from Los Angeles to New York in about 18 hours.

"You can have dinner, go to sleep and wake up in the morning in New York," Pasternak said.

He said the craft would cost about $46 million to build — about the same as the 150-seat Boeing Co. 737 passenger jet but half as expensive to operate.

Businessmen have talked up grand plans for passenger blimps for decades, and none has taken hold. Ever since the hydrogen-filled passenger dirigible Hindenburg burst into flames in 1937, lighter-than-air ships have been little more than a footnote in history.

Pasternak, who doesn't shrink from taking on a behemoth like Lockheed, brushes aside any qualms.

"It'll be a completely different approach to moving things," he said.
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www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-blimp17j ... dar-widget
 
The Flying Luxury Hotel
Joshua Tompkins

This is not a Blimp. It's a sort of flying Queen Mary 2 that could change the way you think about air travel. It's the Aeroscraft, and when it's completed, it will ferry pampered passengers across continents and oceans as they stroll leisurely about the one-acre cabin or relax in their well-appointed staterooms.

Unlike its dirigible ancestors, the Aeroscraft is not lighter than air. Its 14 million cubic feet of helium hoist only two thirds of the craft's weight. The rigid and surprisingly aerodynamic body—driven by huge rearward propellers—generates enough additional lift to keep the behemoth and its 400-ton payload aloft while cruising. During takeoff and landing, six turbofan jet engines push the ship up or ease its descent.

This two-football-fields-long concept airship is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak, whose privately-funded California firm, Worldwide Aeros Corporation, is in the early stages of developing a prototype and expects to have one completed by 2010. Pasternak says several cruise ship companies have expressed interest in the project, and for good reason: The craft would have a range of several thousand miles and, with an estimated top speed of 174 mph, could traverse the continental U.S. in about 18 hours. During the flight, passengers would peer at national landmarks just 8,000 feet below or, if they weren't captivated by the view, the cavernous interior would easily accommodate such amenities as luxury staterooms, restaurants, even a casino.

To minimize noise, the aft-mounted propellers will be electric, powered by a renewable source such as hydrogen fuel cells. A sophisticated buoyancy-management system will serve the same purpose as trim on an airplane, allowing for precise adjustments in flight dynamics to compensate for outside conditions and passenger movement. The automated system will draw outside air into compartments throughout the ship and compress it to manage onboard weight.

The company envisions a cargo-carrying version that could deliver a store's worth of merchandise from a centralized distribution center straight to a Wal-Mart parking lot or, because the helium-filled craft will float, a year's worth of supplies to an offshore oil rig. "You can land on the snow, you can land on the water," Pasternak says. "It's a new vision of what can be done in the air."

Aeroscraft
Purpose: Long-range travel for passengers who are more concerned with the journey than the destination
Dimensions (feet): 165 h x 244 w x 647 l
Max Speed: 174 mph
Range: 6,000 miles
Capacity: 250 passengers
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Blimp
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2006031...18ac893302839010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Here is an artist's conception of the Aeroscraft (salvaged from the Wayback Machine):

cp0206luxHotel_485.jpg
​
 
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Re: Flying hotel...

maxwell121 said:
What could possibly go wrong? :shock:
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Oh, the humanity?
 
Well, it is filled with helium for one thing, not hydrogen. And it seems the Hindenburg fire had more to do with the paint they used having been close to what they use today for rocket fuel. I personally love the idea, very steampunk. They need some onboard butlers and a gentlemans club. The kind without strippers.
 
Blimps to swim through the air like fish
17:30 23 March 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Kelly Young


A Swiss team flies a blimp that is steered by artificial muscles (Image: Y Bar-Cohen/JPL/Caltech/NASA)Blimps steered by artificial muscles may one day swim through the air like fish, suggest recent flight tests. The blimps would be much quieter than those steered by traditional blimp propellers, making them ideal for observing wildlife.

Researchers believe artificial muscles – plastics that stretch when a high electrical voltage is applied – could be a way to mimic nature's efficiency at accomplishing tasks. Using the technology, future robots may be able to "run on Mars like a cheetah, climb a mountain or a cliff like a gecko, or fly like a bird", says Yoseph Bar-Cohen, a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US.

Now, a team from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research in Dübendorf have developed a 6-metre-long blimp steered by artificial muscles.

This week, the team directed the blimp's rudder to steer the airship left, right, up or down at the International Society for Optical Engineering's Electroactive-Polymers Actuators and Devices conference in San Diego, California, US. The blimp is currently able to fly for only 20 minutes on its battery.

Wriggle like a trout
Silvain Michel, head of the electroactive polymers department at the laboratory, hopes to fly a blimp that is not only steered but also powered by artificial muscles within two years. The blimp's tail would wriggle like a trout to propel it through the air.

Michel said the blimps could be used for wildlife or crowd observations in place of noisy helicopters. "If this is possible, then we would have a very quiet, very efficient propulsion system for an airship," Michel told New Scientist.

The blimps could also be "parked" high in the stratosphere, where they could perform some of the duties currently reserved for satellites or towers, including acting as platforms for wireless communications (see Even on the ground, space elevators may have uses).

Muscle workout
But first, researchers must beef up the artificial muscles themselves, which are all handmade. "At the moment they are not very durable," says Michel. "This is a problem of the material itself. We hope that material science can bring us better material in the [coming] years."

Indeed, artificial muscles have so far proven no match for the real thing. In 2005, three teams pitted artificial muscles against a high school girl in an arm wrestling competition.

None of the teams came close to winning, says session moderator Bar-Cohen (see Wrestling the musclebots).

And contest organisers decided not to have the arm wrestling competition in 2007 because the groups said their devices would not be ready in time.

Robots - Learn more about the robotics revolution in our continually updated special report.

Related Articles

Wrestling the muscle-bots
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... 125641.400
12 August 2006

Shape-shifting lens mimics human eye
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... 125636.200
02 August 2006

Smart paper may put lightweight spies in the skies
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9319
12 June 2006

Weblinks

Electro-Active Polymers, NASA
http://eap.jpl.nasa.gov

Electro-Active Polymers, EMPA (German and English)
EMPA


Blimp
Click to expand...
 
I must admit I wonder about the possibility of getting hold of a small model airship, put a camera on it and let it fly around the Himalayas looking for yetis.
 
How about this:

www.jpaerospace.com

They are working on ATO - Airship To Orbit.

Using high altitude blimps to get payloads right to the edge of space. They can then use them as platforms for launching form there.
 
Venezuela launches Zeppelin to tackle rampant crime By Christian Oliver
Thu Apr 19, 6:44 PM ET

Venezuela launched a Zeppelin on Thursday to patrol Caracas, seeking to fight crime in one of Latin America's most dangerous cities but also raising fears that President Hugo Chavez could be turning into Big Brother.

Around the hot-dog stalls of the run-down suburb where the airship took its first flight, most people felt the unmanned eye-in-the-sky could help counter routine hold-ups, shootings and carjackings.

"It is a necessity," said street vendor Pedro Marin when asked about the 15-meter helium-filled blimp that had been looming silently over his stall beside a busy highway.

The $465,000 Zeppelin, built by South Korean firm HanGIS, is the first of three such craft that will beam images into a command center. Police will be able to control the blimps remotely, steering them over the city of about 5 million.

In the refined cafes of east Caracas, there was more cynicism, condemning the blimps as a waste of money that would not work in bad weather or at night, when Caracas is at its most risky, resembling a shuttered-up ghost town.

"It reminds me of 1984, of George Orwell. This is Big Brother. It is not going to solve crime," said Jose Luis, a lawyer who declined to give his family name.

Blimps also fired debates about infringing civil liberties when used in New York and at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

There has been a strong sense of the state keeping tabs on the opposition in Venezuela since a 2004 recall referendum against Chavez, which the president won easily.

Those who signed a petition seeking the referendum complain their identities were made public, affecting their chances of employment in the state sector.

CENTRALIZED POWER

Venezuela's opposition accuses Chavez, hugely popular among the poor majority, of damaging democracy by politicizing state institutions and centralizing power around himself.

The anti-U.S. leader is forming a single governing party, nationalizing huge swathes of the economy and refusing to renew the license of an opposition television channel.

Despite such accusations of growing state control, Ramon Morales Rossi, security chief at the mayor's office, told reporters at the launch there were no grounds for fears the Zeppelin was up to anything sinister.

"If you are just walking in the street, no worries. The intention is to try to lessen crime which is very serious. It is a huge, important issue and the government recognizes it as such," he said.

Venezuela has the world's highest death rate from guns, according to the United Nations, with 34 deaths in every 100,000 caused by firearms. Brazil is second with 22 in every 100,000. Caracas itself has stopped issuing the statistics.

Crime affects all strata of society, from shantytowns where the majority of killings take place to exclusive neighborhoods where villas are ringed by razor wire and electric fences.

When asked about the running joke in Caracas that hardened criminals will simply shoot down any Zeppelin keeping an eye on them, Morales Rossi said the craft was compartmentalized to account for the loss of gas owing to a puncture.

"And it is out of range," he added.
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link
 
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Image & vid at link.

U.S. Army Plans to Send Giant Spy Blimp to Afghanistan
By Anna Maria Jakubek

LEMV: Not Your Father's Blimp: Lockheed Martin
Next time you're in Afghanistan, make sure to keep an eye out for the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense Command's giant blimp-like surveillance airship.

The Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), as it's called, will be 250 feet long, autonomous, and able to float at up to 20,000 feet for an impressive three weeks at a time. As for its surveillance capabilities, a 40-foot-long stretch behind the cockpit will house a selection of spy gear, including a motion sensor and radar.

While the LEMV has yet to be built -- the contract itself won't be awarded until October 1 -- you can get a pretty good idea of the colossal scope of this airship via the below video of Lockheed Martin's P-791, which provided the inspiration for the LEMV. As you watch, keep in mind that the P-791 in the video is only 125 feet long, half the length planned for the LEMV!
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www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-sp ... ghanistan#
 
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I bet that thing's set off a few people claiming they've seen a UFO.
 
Last orders now folks!

Hindenburg airship beer auctioned

The bottle of beer is one of six that survived the Hindenburg crash
A blackened bottle of beer found in the wreck of the Hindenburg zeppelin is expected to fetch thousands of pounds at auction.

The bottle was found by a fire-fighter cleaning up the American airfield where the German airship exploded in 1937.

The bottle will be the most expensive ever bought if it meets its estimated price of £5,000 ($8,337) on Saturday.

The airship was engulfed by flames as it landed in New Jersey, killing 38 people and injuring 60.

Secret find

New Jersey firefighter Leroy Smith found six bottles of Lowenbrau beer and a pitcher intact on the scene of the crash.

You wouldn't want to drink it - it is probably quite putrid to taste

Andrew Aldridge
Auctioneer
He buried his secret find so he could collect them later, as the area had been sealed off by the authorities.

Mr Smith gave the other five bottles to his colleagues.

Most of the others are now lost, although one was given to the Lowenbrau company after the death of Mr Smith's friend.

The silver-plated pitcher, which bears the logo of the Deutsche Zeppelin Reedrei, the zeppelin airline company, is expected to reach £12,000 ($20,000).

Evaporated

The bottle and jug were passed on by Mr Smith to his niece in 1966 and are now to be put on sale by auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son.


The Hindenburg disaster was captured on film
The beer would have gone off within a year of being bottled.

"You wouldn't want to drink it - it is probably quite putrid to taste," auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said.

Some of the liquid has evaporated from the bottle and the label is burned, but the logo is still visible.

The previous record price for a bottle of beer was a limited edition sale of a Carlsberg lager which cost £240 ($400).

The flammable hydrogen that kept the giant zeppelin in the air exploded as the ship came in to land on a voyage across the Atlantic from Frankfurt.

The precise cause of the fire is not known, but it is thought that friction in the mooring ropes could have been responsible.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8352032.stm
 
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Images at link.

New airships to protect British troops

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/10611420

Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle

A brand new, 21st century-style airship could soon be patrolling the skies above Afghanistan, helping protect British and other Nato troops serving there.

A £350m contract's been awarded to American military contractor Northrop Grumman, one of the world's largest defence companies.

The deal will see three Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles (LEMV) built for the US Army within 18 months and ready for operations by early 2012.
Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle The LEMV's will be able to endure a small amount of small arms fire

They will be able to stay in the air for up to three weeks at a time and provide what designers describe as an "unblinking eye" of surveillance for forces on the ground.
Airship facts
Continue reading the main story

* Able to stay in the air for three weeks
* Capable of withstanding small arms fire
* No crew
* Operates at 20,000 feet
* Flies at speeds of up to 80 knots (around 90mph)

Alan Metzger is in charge of the project.

He said: "There won't be any gaps in the data that gets sent back down to the troops on the ground.

"I don't know of anything that comes close to that at the moment that can stay in the air for up to three weeks at a time."

Bosses also say the LEMV's skin, a mixture of tough materials and Kevlar (often used in body armour), will be able to withstand a reasonable amount of small arms fire from Taliban fighters on the ground.
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God I wish they'd bring them back in a serious way. They were a heck of a lot more comfortable than today's planes and it would make flying that much more easy.

They had a dining room with a grand piano - sort of puts the A380 to shame, really.
 
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