Grumman Building Football Field-Sized Robotic Surveillance Blimp 150
colinneagle writes with news of the latest in 1930s surveillance technology turned into a robot. From the article: "It's not fashionable to call this flying spy (hybrid military airship) a 'blimp,' but a Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV). You are no doubt familiar with the Goodyear blimp that hovers over football games, but the LEMV is almost the size of a seven-story flying football field; it's meant to fly at speeds between 30 and 80 knots without ceasing for 21 straight days while providing an 'unblinking' eye of surveillance. Northrop Grumman has a $517 million contract to build three of these 21st-century robotic airships for the U.S. Army. The first of three had a successful 90-minute test flight last week from the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey. This first test flight included two pilots, but the Army intends for the LEMV to be like the Predator, an unmanned flying surveillance machine. Both Northrop Grumman and the Army must like the term 'unblinking,' as it was used several times to describe the 'Revolutionary ISR Weapon System' aka the LEMV."
And who will they be watching? (Score:3, Informative)
FTFA >> "The LEMV is expected to be deployed and hovering over Afghanistan skies by January 2012."
And if you believe that I have some junk bonds I'd like to sell you.
80 knots = ~ 92mph. That's a slow crawl compared to other aircraft. And it can fly at 20,000 feet. Sitting duck for a SAM.
A big, slow air vehicle like that isn't practical for flying over an overseas theater. So I wonder who this thing is designed to watch?
Oh, that's right. Us.
1 Blimp, That'll Be $172M, Please (Score:3, Informative)
>> Northrop Grumman has a $517 million contract to build three (blimps) for the U.S. Army.
It allegedly costs only $2M to build a Goodyear blimp. Wish I knew how to land government contracts like these.
Re:Back to the future! (Score:5, Informative)
Or military units that lack long-range missiles. The things are designed to fly at ~20,000 feet (6km), which for reference is the exact maximum range of the longest-range Stinger missile, so you could shoot it if it was exactly overhead (it won't be, though, thats the point). And that is well above the range of non-missile ordinance as well. In other words, it's designed to be used in situations were the military is fighting relatively poorly equipped enemies (i.e. enemies that don't have long-range SAMs) for a prolonged time in rough terrain. Or in other words, the last couple wars the US has been involved in.
On a side note, I find it amusing that some people complain about how advanced tech like the F-22 is unnecessary since no enemy is even close to a big enough threat to require something that advanced, and then other people complain when tech like this is made which would be useless against advanced enemies. Different enemies require different tools.