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To: Calpernia
I didn't see any mention of these airships being deployed on our southern or northern borders. Are we to assume all threats will only come via the oceans?
3 posted on 03/05/2004 12:42:13 PM PST by umgud (speaking strictly as an infidel,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,)
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To: umgud
Excellent point.
9 posted on 03/05/2004 1:36:03 PM PST by JOE43270 (JOE43270)
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To: umgud
I presume Major General Love is referring to dirigibles similar to the Goodyear or Monster.com blimps. I also presume he is talking about blimps carrying an array of electronic gear and perhaps a minimal human crew.

There have been a series of tethered helium filled balloons on the southern US border for a number of years. They have been, and are, being used to monitor slow flying drug planes. I think they also monitored certain types of radio and other communication traffic. I have seen, up close, one of these balloons near Deming, New Mexico. I understand this particular balloon (called an aerostat)is no longer flying.

Here is a web site that explains the US use of "aerostats".
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/tars.htm

"The aerostat is a large fabric envelope filled with helium. It can rise up to 15,000 feet while tethered by a single cable, which has a maximum breaking strength of 26,000 pounds. For security and safety reasons, the air space around Air Force aerostats is restricted for a radius of at least two statute miles and an altitude up to 15,000 feet. The aerostat network consists of three sizes of aerostats and three varieties of radar. The smallest aerostat is about twice the size of the Goodyear Blimp.

The 275,000 cubic foot, aerodynamically shaped balloon measures 175 feet long by 58 feet across the hull, with a tip-to-tip tail span of 81 feet. The aerostat system lifts a 1,200 pound payload to operating altitude for low-level radar coverage.

The aerostat consists of four major parts or assemblies: the hull, the windscreen and radar platform, the airborne power generator, and the rigging and tether assembly. The hull of the aerostat contains two parts separated by a gas tight fabric partition. The upper chamber is filled with helium and provides the aerostat's lifting capability. The lower chamber of the hull is a pressurized air compartment called a ballonet. A sophisticated subsystem maintains constant pressurization of the ballonet, which maintains the shape of the aerostat's hull at all altitudes. The hull is constructed of a lightweight polyurethane-coated or Tedlar fabric that weighs only eight ounces per yard. The fabric is resistant to environmental degradation, minimizes helium
leakage, and provides structural strength to the aerostat. The windscreen compartment contains the radar and is pressurized by the ballonet. In some aerostats, the airborne power generator consists of an airborne engine control unit that drives the generator, and a 100-gallon fuel tank. Other systems use a power tether. All systems are operated by the aerostats telemetry link to start and stop the engine and its generator. Finally, the rigging consists of the flying suspension likes connected to the main tether and mooring suspension lines.

The Tethered Aerostat Radar System carries the AN/DPS-5 S-band CFAR/MTI and AN/TPS-63 search radars.

The radar data of aerostats is available to the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Customs Service. In addition, this information is available to a blockhouse ground station below, where a flight controller, seated before banks of meters and television screens, monitors the balloon's performance. All radar data is transmitted to the ground station, then digitized and fed to the various control centers for display".
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/tars.htm
19 posted on 03/05/2004 4:07:04 PM PST by miele man
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