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Military Blimps Report for Duty
Multimax is working on an airship that it says will fly at 65,000 feet to 100,000 feet.
(Courtesy Multimax)
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Bethesda-based Lockheed is developing another system for the Missile Defense Agency, known as the High Altitude Airship, which the company says will be 17 times the size of the Goodyear blimp. Stationed offshore, the system could provide surveillance of the United States, monitoring ground and air traffic, said Ron Browning, Lockheed's director of business development on the program.
The company developed a man-made fiber stronger than the polyester-type material often used on blimps to guard the system from drastic weather changes at 65,000 feet and UV rays, Browning said. And the company is confident its system could even survive enemy fire. "You could sustain some holes in the bag without any immediate concerns," he said, noting that its low air pressure means that gas escapes slowly. "It's a fairly survivable aircraft given that it's a large envelope filled with helium."
But the program has already run into some funding problems. Lockheed originally said it would finish a prototype this year, but that has been delayed until 2009 or 2010.
The burgeoning market has already had its first casualty. In 2005, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded contracts to Lockheed Martin and Aeros Aeronautical Systems Corp. to develop a blimp-like system to move troops and equipment to hot spots. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that such a program could potentially be worth about $11.3 billion. "Although not as prompt as conventional aircraft, hybrid airships could still begin arriving in the Persian Gulf region from the United States in about five days," the CBO said in a report.
But after investing $8 million, DARPA did not get the $20 million it wanted for the program this year. "That one had a slightly high giggle factor. It just looks too much like the Hindenburg," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. "I think there was just conceptual push back on it."
And some firms are finding it difficult to crack the market.
The day after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, "we started marketing to the government market," said Curt Westergard, president of Falls Church-based Digital Design & Imaging Service Inc. "We have shown this to the Coast Guard, Army, Special Ops people, force protection units, many of the police people in Arlington, Washington, D.C., people from three-letter agencies."
But, so far, no contracts have emerged for the airship, which he leases to commercial clients for $2,000 to $3,000 a day and is about the size of a Volkswagen bus. "I am not complaining, it's just disappointing," he said.
