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

Scientists to use blimp to look for meteorites
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-scientists ... rites.html
May 3rd, 2012 in Space & Earth / Space Exploration

(AP) -- A group of scientists will board a blimp to search for meteorites that rained over California's gold country last month.

The researchers from NASA and the SETI Institute plan to depart from a Sacramento airfield sometime Thursday. From the air, they hope to spot sites where large fragments fell and follow up with a search party.

Since the meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April, swarms of scientists and amateur meteorite hunters have recovered tiny pieces from the event, mostly in a region where James W. Marshall first discovered gold in California in 1848.

NASA estimates the minivan-sized meteor released energy equal to one-third the explosive force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was seen from Sacramento to Las Vegas.
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Sounds like a fitting mission for a blimp.

The ability to cruise along at moderate speeds and low altitudes made blimps very effective against submarines in WWII.
 
krakenten said:
The ability to cruise along at moderate speeds and low altitudes made blimps very effective against submarines in WWII.
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Have you got any references for that? It's not something I recall hearing before.
 
Look up US Navy Airships in WWII.

U-Boats were afraid of the blimps because they were relatively quiet and had a long loiter time, often they could see a submerged vessel, and drop bombs or depth charges. They could also summon surface warships.

One American blimp was destroyed by machine gun fire when the bomb rack malfunctioned. Another grounded in California after somehow losing her crew. but most of them did their long,silent patrols, and served well. Anti-submarine and scouting were the main blimp missions.

Italian airships were used to explore the Arctic, but had no end of difficulties. try looking up the Norge.

Airships are not a free lunch. Fragile, balky and often difficult to manuver, they were too often wrecked by storms, and landing them could be pure murder on a windy day.

Still, they were there when they were needed, and, it seems, are here again. So, "Raise Ship!" and write the next chapter.
:!:
 
Thanks for that info, people often forget the Japanese balloon bomb campaign.

I've recently seen a dirigable that uses steam for lift. Interesting stuff.

John McFee's "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed" contains much information on Lighter than air craft.
 
krakenten said:
I've recently seen a dirigable that uses steam for lift. Interesting stuff.
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That's an interesting idea. Wonder how it works out against straight hot air.
 
Steam is often used to inflate hot air balloons. It's much safer.

The 'flying tea kettles' are on the market. Balloons are chancy things at best, the steam balloons are safer from fire, as mentioned above.

If you love old time contraptions, look for "The Wonderful World of Jules Verne" a bit of lunacy made with the sort of animation used on Monty Python. It's a real hoot.

Robur's 'Albatross' appears briefly.
 
krakenten said:
The British found that incendiary bullets were effective against airships.
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...but only if they were filled with hydrogen. They would have no effect on modern helium-filled balloons.
 
Several sites dedicated to ballooning mention using steam to safely inflate the bag, at first.

A problem for any airship using lifting gas is that the gas is difficult to contain, being the smallest atoms. Hydrogen will even escape from a steel tank, given enough time.

This is a complex subject, but a lot of fun.
 
Big blimp.

Army Readies Its Mammoth Spy Blimp for First Flight
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05 ... spy-blimp/
By David AxeEmail Author May 22, 2012 | 6:15 pm | Categories: Drones

The U.S. Army's massive Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle. Illustration: Northrop Grumman

TAMPA, Florida — Sure, it took an extra year or so, but Northrop Grumman has finally penciled in the first flight of the giant surveillance airship it’s building for the U.S. Army. The Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle — a football-field-size, helium-filled robot blimp fitted with sensors and data-links — should take to the air over Lakehurst, New Jersey, the first or second week of June. K.C. Brown, Jr., Northrop’s director of Army programs, crows: ”We’re about to fly the thing!”

It’s fair to say Northrop and the Army are crossing their collective fingers for the flight to actually take place, and smoothly. Giant airships promise huge benefits — namely, low cost and long flight times — but it’s proved incredibly hard to build and equip the massive blimps with military-grade sensors and communications … and fill them with helium.

The Air Force’s highly computerized (and potenitally missile-armed) Blue Devil 2 airship recently ran into integration problems, forcing the flying branch to cancel a planned test run in Afghanistan. (Although the service had never been too hot on airships in the first place.) The Navy meanwhile grounded its much smaller MZ-3A research blimp for a lack of work until the Army paid to take it over. The LEMV seemed to be losing air, too, as Northrop and the Army repeatedly delayed its first flight and planned combat deployment originally slated for the end of 2011.

As recently as last month Northrop and the Army declined to comment on the airship’s new flight schedule. Northrop VP Brad Metzger’s boast from last summer that the $500-million LEMV prototype would “redefine persistent surveillance” seemed hollow.


But at a special forces industry conference here in Tampa, Northrop’s Brown surprised Danger Room with a hard date range: LEMV will lift off between June 6 and 10, he says. After a brief trial around Lakehurst, the 300-foot-long airship will motor south to Florida to be mated up with a custom-designed gondola containing the blimp’s cameras and radios.

If the gondola fits as planned and all the gear functions, the pilotless LEMV will cross the Atlantic in “early winter,” bound for “a theater” for a front-line demonstration, Brown says. We’re sure the “theater” in question is Afghanistan. If war commanders like what they see in their new giant spy blimp, the Army could order up more copies, Brown says.

Never mind airworthiness and sensor integration: The biggest danger, according to Brown, is the weather. Airships are “subject to buffeting by winds and by thunderstorms.” Operators have to plan carefully to keep their airships away from storms.

Despite airships’ checkered past, Northrop is optimistic the LEMV will survive the elements and its combat debut. The company is already looking beyond the initial Afghanistan trial. The LEMV can do more than hover and spy. It’s also a potentially useful cargo carrier. The current model can carry 20 tons of supplies. A scaled-up version could carry hundreds of tons — and at a fraction of the cost of fixed-wing airplanes.

Noting Pakistan’s continuing blockade of roads into Afghanistan, Brown proposes that the LEMV could help the Army remove its weapons and gear from from the landlocked country as U.S. troops withdraw. “It presents an attractive alternative.”

Yes, if the giant airship actually flies in June — and works as advertised.
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Yes it flies!

Army spy blimp flies over New Jersey (VIDEO)
http://rt.com/usa/news/army-spy-blimp-jersey-299/
Published: 10 August, 2012, 01:05

The Pentagon has successfully gotten its football field-size super-spy blimp up in the air and congrats, America — you’re in luck! The US Army has completed a test run of its Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle right here in the United States.
Video footage has surfaced of what is believed to be the first domestic test flight of the Pentagon’s Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV, a space-age surveillance craft that can conduct spy missions high in the sky.

The military did not announce to the public ahead of time that it would be conducting test missions of the surveillance craft, which caused confusion for many civilians who saw the LEMV stay afloat for over an hour. Finally late Tuesday, John H. Cummings, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, confirmed to Gannett that the LEMV did engage in a 90-minute test flight Tuesday evening over Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, just south of Trenton.

In a statement made this week, Mr. Cummings tells the media that the test run was successful and that researchers are now conducting additional testing to see how the vehicle withstood the flight.

"The first flight primary objective was to perform a safe launch and recovery with a secondary objective to verify the flight control system operation," Cummings says. "Additional first flight objectives included airworthiness testing and demonstration, and system level performance verification."
"All objectives were met during the first flight," Cummings adds.

The craft, believed to run the military as much as $517 million apiece “if all options are exercised” and can soar in the sky at heights of 20,000 feet for as long as three weeks. The LEMV is 370-feet in length and its manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, says it can be powered either by in-air pilots or by remote control. It can transport seven tons of cargo from Pittsburg to Los Angeles at 30 miles-per-hour and can spy on entire cities from a single spot in the sky.
“Additional manned flights will resume following a planned and very detailed inspection of the vehicle,” Cummings says.

Previously, the Pentagon invested nearly $200 million on the Blue Devil Block 2, a similar surveillance drone developed by researchers at Virginia’s Mav6, that never made it as far as their newest LEMV did. Despite plans to put the Blue Devil over Afghanistan — where they hoped it could scan 36 miles at a time from the sky — the Pentagon cancelled the program after growing costs and ongoing problems made the price tag for maintenance alone quadruple.
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These things must be tested, remember the huge triangular UFOs of a few tears back?

The French have flown large triangular balloons as research platforms for some time.

What goes up, must come down/
 
The strobe is intended to prevent collisions.

An airship has all the agility of a cow on crutches, that strobe is very important!
 
We've seen several airships here(York county PA) and a wonderful sight it is.

Recently Yahoo news stated that an airship is going to be used in the Pacific Northwest, in the hunt for Bigfoot. Good luck, guys.

The very long loiter time over the search area will be very useful, just as in submarine chasing during WWII.
 
A really big airship, of the heavy lift type is ready to fly, as per Yahoo News.

It's big, and the next one will be twice as large.

Seems that ''The Future that Never Was'' might be waiting to spring upon us in Ray Gun Gothic splendor!
 
Best we enjoy our lighter than air ships while we can!

I saw an article on a personal single place dirigible,alas, I didn't note where it was-somewhere on the web?

I love LTA craft,have since childhood. I refuse to accept the title of balloon nut, but I do like to see them.

Do read John McPhee's "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed" which examines dirigibles(short for dirigible balloon, meas steerable, and lifting bodies with McPhee's hypnotic writing skill. That man could make washing dishes interesting.

Much has happened since, but you'll have a good starting point.

Hydrogen is a better lifting gas than helium(discovered that by accident).

These big ones will be magnificent sights, and fulfill some of the promise of 'the future that never was'.

Raise ship!
 
The problem (AFAIK) with using Hydrogen as a LTA lifting gas, though, is that as it is the 'smallest' element it is virtually impossible to make an envelope to completely contain it.
Helium is 'larger' but still LTA, so is more commonly used these days. It does mean that you need to make a bigger envelope to achieve the same amount of lift though.
 
The biggest problem with large airships - and boy, there are a lot of smaller ones - is not the lifting gas, but protecting them from weather, especially high winds, whether in the air or on the ground.

Most of the generation of big airships that didn't blow up were destroyed by high winds.

Pity though - I'd love to see a really big one. May have mentioned this before, but my Dad saw one flying over New York in the early 30's which carried biplanes like an airborne aircraft carrier - must have been some sight! I've seen the sheds at Cardington - they are impressively huge, even by modern standards.
 
Cochise said:
The biggest problem with large airships - and boy, there are a lot of smaller ones - is not the lifting gas, but protecting them from weather, especially high winds, whether in the air or on the ground.

Most of the generation of big airships that didn't blow up were destroyed by high winds.

Pity though - I'd love to see a really big one. May have mentioned this before, but my Dad saw one flying over New York in the early 30's which carried biplanes like an airborne aircraft carrier - must have been some sight! I've seen the sheds at Cardington - they are impressively huge, even by modern standards.
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Sounds wonderful! Biplanes leaving the airship!

I want one of them.
 
You can see it, just get hold of the old serial 'Fighting Devil Dogs' aka 'The Torpedo of Doom'

It's worth it for the villain, "The Lightning", who inspired Darth Vader. He also had a flying wing and lots of evil minions.

At one point, a Navy airship with an airplane bay is involved, of course, the planes have to fly.

Amazon has it, enjoy!
 
:(

Army Kills The Military’s Last Remaining Giant Spy Blimp
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02 ... -deflates/
BY SPENCER ACKERMAN02.14.135:00 PM


This photo from August 2012 shows the only flight of the Long Range Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, a ginormous spy blimp that the Army has now deflated. Photo: U.S. Army
Updated, 6:38 p.m.

And so ends the U.S. military’s dream of mega-blimps strapped with powerful surveillance gear. The Army confirms to Danger Room that it’s killed the last of those lighter-than-air ships.

Say goodbye to the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV. Built by Northrop Grumman, it’s a dimpled blimp as long as a football field; seven stories high; and carries a price tag of over half a billion dollars. The plan was to use the blimp over Afghanistan, where its gondola could haul seven tons of cargo — including advanced camera gear able to see dozens of square miles of terrain with crystal-clear resolution at a single blink. It would stay 20,000 feet above the warzone for weeks at a time, something beyond the capabilities of any spy plane, manned or piloted. Trials over Afghanistan were slated for early this year.

Not anymore. A report in InsideDefense citing anonymous sources said LEMV quietly met the Army budget axe last week. The Army confirmed it, on the record, to Danger Room late on Thursday.

“Due to technical and performance challenges, and the limitations imposed by constrained resources, the Army has determined to discontinue the LEMV development effort,” Army spokesman Dov Schwartz emails.


That came as news to the branch of the Army actually testing the blimp. “The Department of the Army has not notified the Army Space and Missile Defense Command of any programmatic changes to the LEMV program,” spokesman John Cummings told Danger Room earlier Thursday. “LEMV continues to be a technology demonstration at SMDC.” Northrop Grumman was surprised by word of the cancellation; it has yet to comment.

The LEMV has been in trouble for awhile. A technical analysis in 2011 questioned whether the blimp could actually stay aloft for the 21 days Northrop hyped, and figured it was closer to 10. Although the ship was supposed to head to Afghanistan this year, its only flight has been its maiden August test voyage over New Jersey, which was months late. The Army, once a vocal LEMV booster, began backing away from the blimp in October.

And as the LEMV goes, so too went the military’s dreams of giant spy blimps for the foreseeable future.

Last year, the Air Force abruptly canceled its contract for the Blue Devil, a blimp seven times larger than the Goodyear Blimp and LEMV’s main rival. It was a massive reversal: More than just a lighter-than-air vehicle for spy gear, it was to host 12 different sensors and a supercomputer that made Blue Devil capable of acting as a quarterback coordinating other aerial spy gear. Only the avionics arrived late to the party, and technical challenges mounted.

Not even the backing of the Air Force’s former intelligence chief, whose company built the thing, could spare Blue Devil: As my colleague David Axe reported, the Air Force office running the Blue Devil added requirements in a bureaucratic shanking. The Air Force likes planes, not blimps. With Blue Devil dead, all that remains of the mega-blimps is the LEMV.

Here’s the justification for the mega-blimps. They give the U.S. military a middleweight spy tool, between the heavyweight spy satellites orbiting Earth and the welterweight spy planes taking pictures thousands of feet over a given swath of territory. Each has their functions: Satellites pick up huge, wide views and spy planes, manned and unmanned, provide hours’ worth of imagery. For something in between — say, weeks’ worth of so-called “pattern of life” data, send in something lighter than air, higher and more persistent than a plane, below a satellite, and carrying a ginormous amount of sensors, cameras and data processors.

Lots of people in Congress never bought it. As the budget for spy blimps ticked upward and the Army and Air Force fought over who controlled the mega-airships, the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2011 questioned why two competing airframes were necessary. By the time the two top Senate appropriators — the most important legislators in the chamber — threw their weight behind the Blue Devil, the Air Force had all but decided blimps were a non-starter.

The LEMV cancellation means an entire model of aerial surveillance is stillborn. The future of military blimps will be miniaturized: U.S. bases in Afghanistan often use tethered aerostats strapped with cameras above their fortifications to enhance their ability to spot insurgent threats beyond what the eye can see. But with the U.S. packing up from Afghanistan, the smaller blimps have also lost their rationale. The sound you hear is a lot of military hot air escaping.

Updated 6:38 p.m. with Army confirmation that the LEMV is cancelled.
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"The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed" by John McPhee is an old book, but a great source for information on airships and lifting body aircraft.

McPhee could make geology fascinating, imagine what he did with this?

He wrote "The Curve of Blinding Energy", a treatise on home made nukes, too.
 
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