Article

2005-04-26 Home Front: Tech

I AM THE WALRUS: High-Tech Cargo Airships

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Steve 2005-04-26 9:04:18 AM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Clever! And it seems to me (the little civilian housewife, so don't give this too much weight) to reinforce the necessity of an aggressive Air Force A) to fly protection around the balloon and B) to suppress enemy air defences so the balloon can land to deliver its load. That should make the flyboys happy.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-04-26 10:45:46 AM|| 2005-04-26 10:45:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 imvho this is an ideal technology for testing and applying autonomous swarms of small LTA vehicles. Just give them a GPS and if some don't make it then so what?

Posted by phil_b 2005-04-26 11:01:50 AM|| 2005-04-26 11:01:50 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 "...the new "10-30-30" doctrine..." This is the part that disturbs me most. If you have a known timetable, the enemy emphasis becomes less to defeat you directly, than to defeat your timetable. Because once your timetable is broken, your assumed degradation starts to defeat you itself. So you enemy has gained a useful ally. It also means that they can concentrate on attacking your supply lines, which is far easier than attacking your main body.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-04-26 11:03:58 AM|| 2005-04-26 11:03:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 I suspect that these airships will be far higher than UAVs can go. However, as an aside, it is interesting that right now there is an explosion in airship design. It is almost achingly unpleasant that there is no firefighting airship yet available to combat the thousands of western wildfires each year. (The design is to park high above a fire, then "rain" on a fire for hours instead of dumping one big load. These ships would be a bargain instead of the terrible annual loss of billions of dollars to such fires.) But other airships, dozens of them, are already proposed for any number of practical uses.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-04-26 11:21:57 AM|| 2005-04-26 11:21:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Anonymoose -- fire is part of the natural life cycle of the American West... and much of the rest of the world as well. Controlling the smaller fires that can be controlled leads to the conditions (a majority of smaller trees and underbrush that burn so much more easily than the widely spaced large-diameter trees of a mature forest) in which uncontrollable fires burn across a large part of the western half of the continent. With, as you say, billions of dollars of losses. And, a load in air pollutants that puts paid to any efforts at Kyoto limits. We would be much better off to allow the Forest Service to continue their recent efforts at controlled burns, accepting that occasionally these get out of control due to a century of well-intentioned, fire controlling mismanagement, in an effort to return the forest lands to something more closely resembling their natural state -- in which the expected, annual wildfire season does less overall damage while naturally reducing the undergrowth that would otherwise lead to the massive fires we see today.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit too blithe on the subject -- I, too, grew up with Smokey the Bear. But in the process of managing my daughters' school's little 5 acre nature preserve (in the midst of the suburbs, it must be mentioned), and my own little 1/3 acre pocket of woods, I've come to see the risks to the surrounding neighborhoods of allowing the flammable load even in these small areas to continue to increase unchecked.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-04-26 12:35:36 PM|| 2005-04-26 12:35:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 The plan, designated WALRUS,

Craig Stadler changed careers?

Posted by Raj 2005-04-26 12:36:32 PM|| 2005-04-26 12:36:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 TW - on the money - unhindered low growth (shrubs, grass, and weeds) via suppression of all fires is what has led to catastrophic wildfires, as well as preventing natural canopy replacement by choking out natural firs, pines, and other slow-growth plants

Posted by Frank G 2005-04-26 1:02:46 PM|| 2005-04-26 1:02:46 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 trailing wife: first generation efforts were to extinguish all fires; second generation was to allow fires to burn naturally; however, in a third generation of forestry, other factors are starting to be recognized. For example, periods of drought result in an explosion of timber beetles that can kill and severly weaken enormous forests. A rainy season can do much to subdue such a plague, allowing the surviving forest to recover, but if a fire is allowed in, unchecked, to such an area, the entire forest could be lost. And why allow the destruction of an entire forest when only a quarter of its trees are dead? This is just one factor, there are several other that also mitigate how much natural fire is a good thing. And while controlled burns are generally well managed, there are vast numbers of uncontrolled burns that still do need to be subdued. And, all told, I would far prefer that an airship strongly supress wildfires by rain than for countless people to regularly risk their lives to do so.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-04-26 1:27:07 PM|| 2005-04-26 1:27:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 We already way behind. The tricky Russ have stolen a march on us.

Posted by Shipman 2005-04-26 4:39:41 PM|| 2005-04-26 4:39:41 PM|| Front Page Top

23:38 bonanzabucks
23:37 Beau
23:36 anymouse
23:26 Beau
23:24 Sobiesky
23:22 JAB
23:20 Beau
23:18 SwissTex
23:06 Jackal
23:03 Jackal
22:54 Sobiesky
22:47 Jackal
22:47 .com
22:44 Jackal
22:44 anonymous2u
22:36 .com
22:34 Dave D.
22:33 Sobiesky
22:30 Frank G
22:26 .com
22:26 Frank G
22:26 .com
22:19 .com
22:18 Alaska Paul