Blackwater's All-Seeing Airships By David Axe Wired News
July 23, 2008 | 7:00:00 AM http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/blackwater-want.html So voracious is the demand for information in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Pentagon has asked Congress to shift $1.3 billion to so-called "Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance" systems in the current budget. So it's no surprise that Blackwater wants to get in on the ISR game. After all, the North Carolina-based merc group already duplicates many military functions. It even has its own small air force. What perhaps is surprising is the platform the company is considering. According to Air Force Times, it's an airship. "Although still in development, Blackwater's new airships can fly twice as long as Air Force Predators and operate at one-fifth the cost, said Blackwater Worldwide CEO Erik Prince." The 170-foot airships won't be armed like many of the military's drones, but they will carry the same kinds of sensors. Prince compared his company's airship to an F-150 pickup where nations could plug in their sensors, including forward looking infrared sensor balls, cell phone intercept boxes, radio repeaters and synthetic aperture radars. [Here is relevant info from the Blackwater web site.] http://www.blackwaterusa.com/airship/ Airships Blackwater Airships LLC was established in January 2006 as the newest Blackwater venture -- with a mission to build a remotely piloted airship vehicle (RPAV). Although seemingly different from the traditional Blackwater mission, this new venture to provide a persistent surveillance capability is fully consistent with the Blackwater goal of offering solutions which help to protect our forces wherever they are deployed and support our homeland security. The Blackwater Airships team completed design work at the end of 2006 and is now building the Polar 400 airship. This highly capable RPAV will provide a platform ready to accomodate a wide variety of state-of-the-art surveillance, communications and detection equipment that can record and store events and downlink them in real-time to ground operators. The make-up of the mission payload of up to 400 lbs will be determined by customer requirements -- whether for combat areas, port or border security, or coastal patrol. The prototype Polar 400 is completing propulsion ground tests and when fully assembled will undergo test flights and then move into production by mid-year 2007. Following successful demonstration flights, Blackwater Airships will begin selling or leasing airships to Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and other government customers. The Polar 400 is designed to operate for 48 to 60 hours at altitudes from 5,000 to 15,000 feet. The unique design of the RPAV propulsion system will give it the capability to loiter over a desired location with excellent low-speed maneuverability, along with an ability to fly at up to 50 knots to move quickly to and from a target area. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu ******************************* * POST TO [EMAIL PROTECTED] * ******************************* Medianews mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
