Pentagon to deploy huge blimps over Washington, DC for 360-degree surveillance

RT ^ | 07/26/2013 | RT

[TexGrill]

A pair of high-tech Army blimps is coming to the greater Washington, DC area, and soon they will be able to provide the military with surveillance powers that spans hundreds of millions of acres from North Carolina to Niagara Falls, Canada.

The airships are part of Raytheon’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, and when all is said and done they’ll offer the United States military what the defense contractor calls “an affordable elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system” that relies on “a powerful integrated radar system to detect, track and target a variety of threats.”

Raytheon has just wrapped up a six-week testing period in the state of Utah and is now sending its JLENS fleet to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Once there, the Army intends to get some hands-on experience that will eventually culminate in launching the pair of airships over Washington, DC.

[theBuckwheat]

Government rushing to protect... government.

[PUGACHEV]

Will there be a Colonel Blimp to run them?

[SoFloFreeper]

Hey Obama, the year 1916 called. They want their technology back.

[Roccus]

ChiCom subs

[Lucky9teen]

[ThunderSleeps]

The question is, why bother putting up a surveillance and fire control radar to find and intercept threats (eg. cruise missiles) if you have no means of intercepting them? Sure, AF planes can scramble and meet inbound aircraft. But cruise missiles? Or are they going to deploy several Patriot batteries around DC now?

Methinks this isn't about using the radar for its stated purpose. This is a persistent surveillance platform that probably has a lot of optics installed too.

[sten]

didn’t we just remove a few blimps from the southern border that were providing southern border surveillance?

[DYngbld]

That was the photo I was looking for.

[ops33]

There is also a tethered aerostat in the Florida Keys. A couple of years ago a pilot of a light aircraft did not check the Notams before flying and struck one of the tethering cables at about 13000 feet. Makes a person wonder why the government would want two such tethered aerostats above an urban area?

[Resolute Conservative]

Since when is the military suppose to “watch” our cities?

[eartrumpet]

A friend got some of the tether they use on the Mexican border blimps. It is the best tow rope I ever saw. About an inch in diameter rope and you can’t bust it no matter how hard you jerk the stuck vehicle.

[nixonsnose]

I saw them outside of Alpine, Texas a couple of weeks ago. We saw it in the sky from miles away. As we passed the station, it looks like the pic in the thread with tether, station and blimp.

[Colonel_Flagg]

"The airships are part of Raytheon’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, and when all is said and done they’ll offer the United States military what the defense contractor calls “an affordable elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system” that relies on “a powerful integrated radar system to detect, track and target a variety of threats.” "

Starting with Tea Partiers.

[mass55th]

Are we back in WWII with barrage balloons?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Scud on a tub. A freighter or submarine operating off the east coast of the U.S.

[Hulka]

Still have them there.

[Hulka]

Not so “short range.”

Many cruise missiles fly very long distances.

[eartick]

Last time I was down by La India I did not see the blimp on the tether or on the ground.

[Hulka]

Oh. . .I should have been more clear; a couple of months ago, in May, I was on I-10 in New Mexico and saw a tether and a blimp mile to the south. Mobile perhaps? (This was not a usual advert blimp or a dirigible. . .it was tethered and I estimate over 10,000 feet up.) Maybe different blimp? Maybe new blimp at new location? Testing? Who knows. . .