Blue Devil Block 2

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hilgenberg
CL 160
CL 160
Beiträge: 300
Wohnort: Marburg

Blue Devil Block 2

Beitrag von hilgenberg »

Huge US command-&-control airship gets quantum optics

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/22 ... tics_tech/

Pentagon boffinry powerhouse DARPA has announced plans to fit a giant new US military command and control airship - known as "Blue Devil Block 2" - with through-the-air optical links offering bandwidth normally achievable only by fibre cables.
...

... For those who might be more interested in the ship than the payload, the Blue Devil is no less than 370 feet long (ie roughly of a size to fill up the interior of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris) and boasts diesel-electric propulsion for flights lasting up to 9 days at altitudes of 20,000 feet - and furnishing up to 96 kilowatts of power for the payload hardware. It's a simple blimp in construction, using internal envelope pressure rather than any rigid structure to maintain its shape - though it's very large for a blimp, with volume of just over 1.3 million cubic feet, almost seven times as much as today's Goodyear ships. (The largest non-rigids ever built were the US Navy's 1950s ZPG-3Ws, which carried a large distant early warning radar inside their envelopes, at 1.5 million feet3). The ship, as opposed to the more-expensive payload, is provided by TCOM of North Carolina.
...
!!! Other parts of the US military also plan to use airships above Afghanistan as airborne spyeyes and comms relay posts. The US Army's Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) uses a more sophisticated "hybrid" design from British engineers which should means it will be more economical with helium, and thus is of more interest to airship buffs (the more so as it could potentially carry heavy cargoes at lower altitudes): on the other hand it was supposed to have made its first flight some months ago now, and instead there has been ominous silence from the programme. !!!

At $517m, LEMV is a much more expensive project than the $86m Blue Devil 2, but it could be that the Blue Devil will actually beat it into the air.

Hervorhebung durch mich!
War irgendwie nicht anders zu erwarten, das auch die Verzögerungen haben werden. Man kann eben ein neues Fluggerät nicht mal eben Planen und Bauen in einem Rutsch, ohne das man dabei auf Hindernisse stößt, die zeitlich (und finanziell) nicht eingeplant waren. Es hat wohl seit dem zweiten Weltkrieg kein großes Luftfahrtprojekt gegeben, das im ursprünglichen Zeit und Kostenrahmen geblieben wäre. Das hat Boeing noch nie geschafft, EADS/Airbus nicht, Northrop/HAV schaffen es trotz einer halben Milliarde Dollar nicht. Nur bei CargoLifter war das ein unverzeihlicher Managementfehler, der nie hätte passieren dürfen ...

gruß
hilgenberg
Das größte Vergnügen im Leben besteht darin, Dinge zu tun, die man nach
Meinung anderer Leute nicht fertigbringt. (Aymé, Marcel)

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