[gaspar]

Unless you want to see a big boom, a la the Hindenburg, you don't use hydrogen for weather baloons, you use helium.

Geez, first it was Roswell, and now its Iraq; weather baloons are getting a bad name.

[ijcr]

You are not quite correct about the helium.Hydrogen is used to obtain height, as the balloon expands the helium would leak out through the rubber and the optimum height of around 11 kms would not be achieved. For low level, ie blimps and dirigibles helium is fine but for serious Met work it's good ole Hydrogen. Remember, the 6 foot ballon launched at ground level becomes as big as a school bus at
about 8 kms high.

I also have to add a previous post.

The Hydrogen generators sold to Iraq with the AMETS were
mounted on a two wheel trailers and were about 12foot long and 6foot high. Manufactured by Johnson and Matthey PLC, London.They were outfitted with four harvesting/storage cylinders mounted horizontally two per side. These cylinders were half the trailer.

The Amets systems employed by the Iraqi Army suffered from the problem of utilising an x-band radar that locked onto
a mesh target suspended from the balloon.Remember to get the wind speeds and directions required, the flight has to get up to a height of at least 5kms and the distance covered by the rig could be as far as 50kms.

During the first Gulf war the result of such a long radar transmission was a beam riding anti radiation missile from a coalition aircraft.In fact the claims of allied airstikes on some anti aircraft radar positions were actually stikes on Met stations.

The most logical question these reporters have not asked yet is :- Where are the Artillery Met systems that require the hydrogen?

Let me add an e-mail that I have recieved from the Observer reporter who covered the story earlier.

As one of the reporters on the story, I thought I'd respond.

What we understand - and we have had this confirmed from very senior sources - is that the mobile labs were almost certainly used for producing hydrogen. It is believed that is highly likely that this hydrogen would have been used for artillery balloons, although there could have been other uses for it.

It is known that Iraq had a system of using such balloons because Marconi Command & Control sold them one in 1987. This was confirmed by a spokesman from AMS.

The actual trucks and equipment used to produce the hydrogen were not British, but Iraqi.

The point is that while it might be likely that the Iraqis did have some mobile BW facilities, these truck-trailers were probably not part of any such facility.

Keep in touch

Antony Barnett

It is suspected that David Kelly was the source quoted by Barnett, when he wrote this story and he is no longer around to disprove it.