I’m a little unclear on exactly how a tethered blimp is supposed to intercept a maneuvering 500 mph cruise missile.
I’m just wondering how many petapixel cameras are on that. And the downlink bandwidth being fed into the facial recognition database.
“I’m a little unclear on exactly how a tethered blimp is supposed to intercept a maneuvering 500 mph cruise missile.”
It’s equipped with 20GBs of sternly worded letters delivered via WiFi.
It is not intended to intercept anything - its a platform for aerial radar observation - its cheaper and safer to use a thered aerostat for that than to have an AWACS flying full-time in a racetrack orbit around the capital.
Lots of misunderstanding in this thread - its not an invasion of privacy, its not a plan to put 100s of blimps over Washington, its not a step backwards to 1930 technology. Frankly we should be using these to observe border airspace and airspace around important sites all over the country.
Detection only. We have the ability to shoot cruise missiles (article is wrong on that part).
“I’m a little unclear on exactly how a tethered blimp is supposed to intercept a maneuvering 500 mph cruise missile.”
It is above ground clutter, so it can do what a surface mounted radar can’t. It also has a pretty far horizon- at ground level it’s about 15 miles, but from 10kft it’s several hundred miles.
So when North Korea launches a missile from 90 miles offshore, the radar sees it, does all the tracking solutions, and hands the data off to something that CAN take action, maybe a cruiser with PHALANX abord or some missile system. The radar can work in a closed loop with a guided missile, as active fire control.
It’s just a radar mounted up high, cheaper than flying AWACS 24/7.
“I’m a little unclear on exactly how a tethered blimp is supposed to intercept a maneuvering 500 mph cruise missile.”
Amy Pond hanging from a rope from a blimp used the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver to do just that, I believe.
And if it’s on TV, it must be true.
Did someone already reply? They’re for detection, not disruption.
We’ve had one of these (different payload, I expect) tethered on Ft. Huachuca, AZ for over 20 years now. Ostensibly for detection of drug and people smugglers.