Two blimps almost the length of a football field will be spying over DC's skies

By September, two blimps almost the length of a football field will be spying over DC's skies to defend against tactical ballistic missiles, large caliber rockets and moving vehicles

(Reuters) - A pair of big, blimp-like craft, moored to the ground and flying as high as 10,000 feet, are to be added to a high-tech shield designed to protect the Washington D.C. area from air attack, at least for a while.

The bulbous, helium-filled "aerostats" - each more than three quarters the length of a football field at 243 feet - are to be stitched into existing defenses as part of an exercise of new technology ordered by the Defense Department.

The coming addition to the umbrella over Washington is known as Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS. Raytheon Co is the prime contractor.

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Isn't it interesting that DC is worried about incoming threats? Are they planning something big that would that would cause another country to want to retaliate against the capital city? Or is this just some pork added to DOD's defense budget to benefit some connected contractor?? What say you?? BTW it is an ugly thing.

reply to post by GrantedBail


I think it is more of a worry about an internal threat. There appears to be some infighting amongst the elite in Washington, and I think those pulling the current strings of our countries demise are getting worried.

It will be interesting to say the least to see the money hungry vultures, tear at each others flesh as they struggle to see whom arises with the power.........

These things are going to be attached to the ground with 10,000 feet of "rope" between them and the ground?

Wow!

Yeah, neat looking blimps they have there in DC. You notice that they buy them to guard themselves and not the rest of the citizens.

They should have made them look like Mighty Mouse and Underdog.

Speaking of blimps, check out this bad boy the US military is building...500-feet long with a 66-ton cargo capacity:

Montabello, Calif.-based Aeros is working on a rigid airship that can fly like a plane and float like a balloon. If realized, the 500-foot-long Aeroscraft would greatly alter the way cargo is shipped. The craft is designed to take off vertically and cruise at up to 130 miles an hour at an altitude of 12,000 feet. It will be able to travel thousands of miles on a single tank of fuel, carrying 66 tons of cargo -- that's three times the capacity of a C-130 and half that of the C-5, the largest military aircraft flown by the United States.

news.discovery.com...

I heard about this on the radio a few days ago. Link to WTOP blurb.

Reuters reports the $450 million dollar aerostats will arrive in the area by Sept. 30. They will be tested at an undisclosed location for up to three years.

My question is why is the location undisclosed? How do they intend to hide 2 blimps at only 10000' tethered to the ground?
This whole, "We are spying on our citizens for National Securty" is completely out of control.

reply to post by GrantedBail


Our world is becoming more dystopian every year.

Doesn’t military equipment like monitoring blimps and drones racing through the skies conjure images from famous fictional novels in which humanity is under severe oppression and subjected to constant warfare?!

What is next? Giant concrete citadels with anti-aircraft weaponry and observation equipment looming over every city center.

Please forgive me, I may be getting a bit carried away , but our world is moving towards a state that is unprecedented in our recorded history.

It would seem that Washington understands it has made itself an enemy of everyone else in the world, except paid military contractors.

If it is anything like all the other intelligence systems, it won't work in a timely manner.

Washington seems to have been safe for the last 12 years ( since 9/11/2001) with the precautions they already have in place, so why do they suddenly need these blimps?
I don`t believe for one second that these blimps are for defending against ICBM`s and other types of attacks.
I think they have some new type of spying technology on the blimps and they want to test it on a real live big city.

These are spares they cut them from the southern border so they could have them in DC. There's no longer any problem with the border with Mexico so they don't need to watch it

These blimps sound alot like the scrapped blue devil project that cost the airforce a fortune. It was meant to orchestrate drone strikes over Afghanistan with something like a terrabite; their just making the blimps smaller now. If you think about it though they would be considerably more useful in the arctic because the computers would be naturally cooled; the arctic was originally crossed by blimp anyways because of the difficulty of the terrain. If you had solar panels you could easily take advantage of the fact day lasts 6 months over there; for stationary objects that is.

Smaller Rader balloons and P-3 AEW&C have been usend by the us border patrol
To protect the border form drug runners but giant AEW blimp is new to me

Originally posted by MDDoxs
reply to post by GrantedBail

 

Our world is becoming more dystopian every year.

You aren't the only one who reads it like a sci-fi novel.

We are slowly catching up with the ideas of old and implementing them with the tech we create just for them.

We are creating a Star Wars imperial society mixed with Blade Runner and Minority Report.

yes... "spying" your cute

We are just about in the world of "Cyberpunk" genre that popular novels have

before long only online pirates, anonymous, hackers, will have true freedom...

the good parts of Snowcrash

the people trying to stay legit/legal will be chained, they can't post links or get in trouble/banned/etc. Can't speak out or you get traced, arrested, terroristic threats, etc...

so only pirates, hackers, anon, that know how to use Tor, VPN's etc to stay hidden will be able to speak their mind, post links to any content they like sorta how we do on the Tor forums anyhow, course you'll never see a dmca on the darknet of .onion sites.


cyberpunk genre is becoming a reality hehe

They've been flying a spy blimp, Fat Albert, in the Florida Keys for decades now. In the late 1980s they used to fly one off Cape Canaveral. Nothing new about spy blimps, these ones seem very sophisticated.

Big Brother is watching!

Nothing new just in DC because the drug war is basically over.Used and couldn't find a place to store them.


Not sure why they didn't use hot air ones it seems like the perfect place

reply to post by GrantedBail


The blimps are going at Aberdeen Proving Ground, this is several hours from the immediate DC area and definitely not visible from the Metro area. Aberdeen is by the coast and will over a good coastal view- wonder why they are anticipating a threat from the East...

Paranoia !

Soo many people want to kill Obama.
and the list grows.