Here we are on the edge of a new year and still no sign of the mythical flying bewilder beast known as LEMV, the promise that LEMV would be quickly mass produced now seems like a distant fairy tail as the reality of perpetual overstatements by military contractors always live up to their routine of never living up to what is calmed.
Honestly, I have no Idea what the state of LEMV is as I write this, as everything relating to LEMV in the Google news feed is dead. Go see for yourself (Click Here)... see? Nothing. The last thing I remember reading said that LEMV was set to fly in November, after being already 3 mouths behind then. Now it's December 30th and the news feed on LEMV is dead. Nobody is talking about how far behind this airship program is, yet they are supposed to deploy the first one to Afghanistan next month! It's obvious this airship venture is behind scheduled and nobody is saying why.
What some might find annoying, I kinda do, is that Lockheed Martin had already built a working prototype that fit LEMV's specifications back in 2007, the P-791 as you may recall. Yet the military decided to go with the British company that was in it's infancy compared to where Lockheed was back in 2007. I'm not saying it was a bad choice, I think the idea was to even out the competition. However it's clear at this point that if it was speed the military was looking for, which is something they have stated as a high priority target, Lockheed would have been more ideal to fit the task.
One can't help but wonder if their is something larger at play here. Historically, Germany has always been the nation to perfect Airship technology, and Britain was always been fallowing in their footsteps by building off German designs that would crash over Britannia during the first World War. Now however it is Britain to be leading and Germany to fallow. With these new perfected airships everyone will need to take after the Brits. Yet, I can't help but wonder if for some reason this technology is only being perfected now because it is Britannia that is doing it? Could their be a conspiracy around airships that has disallowed the development of the technology for the last century by the British elites? To put that in more detail dose the Royal Family believe in the mystical power of airships and fear it's power so much that they would kill to keep it for themselves? And only let the development go forth if it is Britannia that leads the charge? Historically the Britsh were always trying to outdo the Germans. Yet, the Germans just kept on building better and bigger airships and made the Brits look like fools with their airships that would fall apart.
Now however, times are much different. Zeppelin development in Germany is no better then any other nation with only hints of ambition to build the Hindenburg 2, or some other grand airship project, popping up every once in a great while then dwindling away. It seems like Britannia has won a long standing Invisible war with Germany, and everyone else for that matter. For as soon as LEMV fly's Britannia will be known as the nation that finally brought about practical airships... if it is even going to fly at all at this point.
