We need a new transport

[Deimos Anomaly]

I think I qualified my statments with "I bleleive", "around", "I think". I haven;t studied pyhsics or chemistry in years, so it isn't my expertise. But I know a few things. Here and there. Am I an expert no. Are you?

Never claimed to be a rocket scienctist. Just discuss what I hear and what is explained to me, and pass on my understanding. I suspect thats what most peopel do on this board. Are you going to call them rocket sciencetist even thouigh they never made the claim?

Histroy and economics are my strong suits, but I try not to be limited to them. My qualifications in regards to history are extensive. I have over 5 years of collegeic study of Ancient civilization in particular western history, and even more particular Roman History. I know latin (though its has been getting weak since I rarely use it these days) and have translated a few manuscripts, such as the Anneid, a good deal of Cicerio, Julius Ceaser and more classical education than you can shack a stick at. Plus I have studied on my own, many different topiocs related to history. Its a hobby. Studing the past gives perspective on where we are going. I also know some ancient Greek as well, though that was for langauge exvolution study course I took.

Lets go over your education now.

I hope Mike Wong comes in and sees this... this is exactly the sort of thing he'd rip you a new arsehole over. Fun to watch.

Hint: Look at his hatemail page, and see by example of others, where you're going wrong.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

And once again I respectfully submit that a mile long airship (rigid or not) is still a "bullet magnet". Belay that. it is a missile magnet. And most of the cruise missiles nowadays (which can hit and destroy a 200 metre long warship from 400 miles away) should be able to take it out.

Actualy, no missile has 400 mile range, more like 250 for a couple.

But that doesn’t matter, none of them have any air to air capability. The seekers would suffered from the same target size problumes even if they did.
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Correct. Furthermore cruise missiles are optimized for long range LEVEL flights, not the rapidly climbing trajectories needed to hit high-flying targets, even those a mile wide.
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What you need is a combination of an SA-5 or SA-4 missile airframe, and an EO guidance system. But nothing like that exists or is even projected. Such a system would also be easy to jam.
More then jam actualy, the jammers you could mount on a mile long blimp would easily put out enough power to fry the electronics of just aobut anything. It could be found through its command guidance signles, and a jammer then directed at the source.Stuff like this has happened, one EF-111 in the gulf was credited with a kill via manuver, however they claim to have directed there jammers at the attacking fighter, after which it promptly crashed.
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Jamming is one thing. But if the pilot uses dumbfire missiles (Javelin HVMs for example... though these are laser-guided and would be harder to jam) Jamming doesn't help that much. Plus, the blimp would be so huge the pilot could dumbfire his missiles and hit.
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Then we have the birds killed in Alaska by the Cobra Dane sets..

Please remember that AAA isn't the ONLY thing in the air now. Sure, WW2 zeppelins could take explosive shells. Big deal. Can they take a missile designed to shoot down fighter jets travelling at Mach 2? Or multiple missiles of that kind, for that matter?

A 25-90 pound expanding rod HE warhead wont even be noticed by somthing this sized. Several dozen would not faze it. And it ability to mount its own defences would make such massed attacks quite unlikely, plsu it should have escorting fighters.

And there are some guns which can reach sub-orbital blimps, the HARP (High Altitude Research Project) cannons which seem to have a ceiling of around 130'000 ft.

They also have the mobility of a light house on a sled. The mobility of even Italys 3 inch air defence tank was poor. Heavy AAA peices by nature are hard to conceal and hard to move.
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Correct: I mentioned this not as a solution, but as a reminder that it is POSSIBLE to reach such heights with launched projectiles. I never mentioned anything about PRACTICALLY possible, and your statement has high-lighted an important point - experimental technology is not necessarily battlefield ready technology.
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My point is, blimps are a good idea, just not anywhere near the field of battle! And the thing is, with today's technology, the field of battle is very damn big. So for shipping of commercial stuff yes. But NOT as a combat transport.

I agree though, it would be stupid to risk something this sized on the battlefield. But the ability to unload 80,000 tons of equipment even 75 miles from the front line would be useful.

80'000 tons sounds a little farfetched... this isn't a flying supertanker here... but if they managed to make it a sub-orbital blimp (hard though - those balloons that made it to sub-orbital heights probably weren't all that big anyway. One of those size to mass ratio problems handled on Wong's site) it would really kick ass.

Other problems I thought of - How would you move the thing? You'd run into MASSIVE (and I mean FUCKING HUGE here) air resistance.

Nuclear engines? perhaps. Then what happens if someone in a MiG-25 (or similar fighter) comes after you and unloads a bunch of AAMs into the engine compartment? I mean, after the first few runs into the dirigible don't down it immediately, the pilots would probably get smart and aim for the engines. If not, it would certainly be the first things intelligent commanders would order after reviewing the combat reports.

Sure, most modern nuclear reactor domes can handle a plane crashing into them, but how much armor can you fit in there without seriously reducing the carry loads? I suppose reactive armor would help, though if they were really determined, they'd use multiple air superiority fighters with hypervelocity missiles.

It would resemble WW-2 German anti-bomber intercepts, I would imagine, except that the combat would be running at five times the speed.

The airship would certainly be massive, and bloody expensive. Losing one would be a major blow.

Ah hell. I'm not against the concept - well, not that much. But I still think that a blimp wouldn't be very combat-viable, even if it were restricted to the sidelines (wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose of the transport, which is to get equipment to the battlefield ASAP? 75 miles is a pretty long distance to cover, IMO)

[Sea Skimmer]

80'000 tons sounds a little farfetched... this isn't a flying supertanker here... but if they managed to make it a sub-orbital blimp (hard though - those balloons that made it to sub-orbital heights probably weren't all that big anyway. One of those size to mass ratio problems handled on Wong's site) it would really kick ass.

Other problems I thought of - How would you move the thing? You'd run into MASSIVE (and I mean FUCKING HUGE here) air resistance.

Nuclear engines? perhaps. Then what happens if someone in a MiG-25 (or similar fighter) comes after you and unloads a bunch of AAMs into the engine compartment? I mean, after the first few runs into the dirigible don't down it immediately, the pilots would probably get smart and aim for the engines. If not, it would certainly be the first things intelligent commanders would order after reviewing the combat reports.

80,000 something tons was the estimated lifting capacity of the airship in question.

You certainly are right about unguided rockets or laser guided ones, but those all have quite limited range, the lasers only go so far. They can be jammed, but IIRC even the best are only about 40% effective at saving tanks from ATGW's.

A good CAP would offer a lot of protection against that sort of attack though; it might even be possible to refuel Harriers in flight andh vae some along for the whole flight. They could also bring along HARM's for extrap rotection.

Course, if attackers did get through, screw rockets, a attacking plane could simply drop bombs on the thing. A dozen THEL's units would go a long way towards defense though, they could even deal with incoming artillery during landings. That experimental tech we at least know works..

Those plus altitude would make this a mean beast to break. The MiG-25 is not that common, and few fighters besides that one can reach over 60,000, though some have missiles which can snap up to 70K.

I'd say a nuclear reactor or three would be the likely means of propulsion, linked to a hundred or so turbines. The reactors 12 inch lead shielding would weigh a fair amount, but combined with a couple inches of steel would offer plenty of protection. Air to air missiles are hard pressed to penetrate even normal steel, most are made to shred planes made of aircraft grade aluminum.


Yes, the loss of one would be a huge blow, but there's basically no chance something like this would get built anyway, this is really an exercise in achievable insanity.

Imagine the Chinese high command when they get a report that a mile long airship just decimated a regiment of fighters with unknown weapons, blasted a brigade of SA-10s with standoff weapons and has just lowered a trio of 25K of Strike Cruisers into Yangtze?

Note: The Strike is a rejected 1975 design for what's basically a nuclear power Tico with 8-inch guns. Rejected because it would cost about 2.5 billion.

It’s a little something else I'd like to see get built..

[Admiral Piett]

A manned nuclear driven aircraft IS feasible from a technological point of view.They could have done it already in the sixties.I am not discussing that.
What I am saying is that it was and it is simply too much dangerous and it is not PRACTICAL.
If someone is aware of current developments of nuclear reactors that could overcome the problem I am curious to hear.

[Manji]

It could probably be powered by a nuclear reactor...

In fact the same size of reactor that powers a Nimitz-class would probably do for an airship this size, which would therefore not present a weight problem anyway.

Rather than using steam turbines to directly drive the engines though, it's probable that it would be nuclear-electric (basically, a small nuclear power station) and use electric power to drive massive electrically powered turbines. CVNs already have a nuclear electric setup of course, just that they don't use the electric power for propulsion, though they could. The power output of a Nimitz-class's nuclear-electric setup has been described as "enough to power a small city".

Now to escorts: The only issue with escorting fighters is speed. The airship could make 85, 90, maybe 100 mph. I'm not sure if modern fighter jets, designed to fly and fight in the 400-1,400 mph range, would be able to hold to the airship's speed without stalling. A better idea might be for the airship to be escorted by helicopters, backed up by combat jets capable of fast takeoff (such as Harriers or VTOL variant JSF) aboard the ship ready to launch whenever.

[Admiral Piett]

I have found some material about the nuclear aircraft at fas.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/anp.htm

As I suspected they needed to use an high density fuel nuclear reactor,which would be a BIG problem in case of crash.
In anycase it is obvious that,while it can be done, it is impractical and of no use in the current situation.
Read even the appendix

[Raxmei]

[quote="RayCav of ASVS]
X-6 - B-36 with onboard nuclear reactor. Fully manned too.[/quote]

I know Pluto wasn't the only project, it was just an example. Still, how many passengers could the X-6 carry, and would you like to be one of them?

[Wicked Pilot]

This thread is growing annoying, so this will be my final and forte post

Advantages of mile long rigid airships:

1. Incredable payload
2. Can go anywhere in the world without refueling.

Disadvantages of mile long rigid airships

1. Airships are slow. The Westing house YEZ-2A Sentinel 5000 has a max speed of 90kts. (slower than a Cessna 152) At that rate, it would take a mile long airship 35 seconds to travel its own length. A Boeing C-17 Globemaster II can go over 350kts. C-130s go 330kts, while C-5s can reach over 500kts.

2. Rigid airships cannot achieve the same altitude as fixed wing aircraft. This whole nonsense of an airship going into the sub-orbital is complete and utter bullshit.

3. Airships of this magnitude would need extensive ground support at the landing area. They would need a bigger clearing to land on than what is required for a C-130 or C-17, and they would require extensive tie-downs and other means of securing themselves to the ground before they could offload vehicles safely.

4. Airships need near perfect visiblility and very light surface winds to touch down.

5. Airships "carry all their eggs in one basket." Anyone fimaliar with what happen to the Atlantic Conveyor during the Falklands War understands why this is a bad idea.


As someone suggest earlier, using a airship this size in the civilian sector would be a great idea. For instance, you could ship cars straight from Detroit to almost anywhere in the world without having to use trains, ships, and all the middlemen associated with them. But as a military application, airships are best left to communications and submarine hunting.

[Sea Skimmer]

Now to escorts: The only issue with escorting fighters is speed. The airship could make 85, 90, maybe 100 mph. I'm not sure if modern fighter jets, designed to fly and fight in the 400-1,400 mph range, would be able to hold to the airship's speed without stalling. A better idea might be for the airship to be escorted by helicopters, backed up by combat jets capable of fast takeoff (such as Harriers or VTOL variant JSF) aboard the ship ready to launch whenever.

You run into the same problume with fixed wing escorting helicopters. The escort flies in a circle and make each turn a little later then the last, so as to advance along with the helos. With such a huge airship, its more likely they be flying out a dozen miles or so though in race track patterns

Helicopters won't work for escort, far to limited in air-to-air capability, and they don’t have the altitude