Is this LEMV?

It's hard to determine if this is LEMV or an earlier prototype. Anyone have a clue?
My guess is that the Army would be unwilling to do test of this nature on it's first flight.

First Photo but from where?

Al.com has the first photo of LEMV from the army, but I can't find the source

First Footage of LEMV

LEMV is just too big not to be noticed and a family in New Jersey caught the thing on tape during it's first flight.

LEMV Flies! Will the Revolution Begin?

Aviation Week reported yesterday night, that on August 7th 2000 and 12 LEMV underwent it's madden flight out of Lakehurst New Jersey. No pictures or video as of yet, but this is the big moment we have all been waiting for. Finally the United States Military has a vehicle to prove of disprove airship technology in the 21st century, and on top of that, it's the worlds largest flying object.

Strangely enough this happened on the same day that Discovery Air ended it's deal with Hybrid Air Vehicles to build a fleet of 50 ton cargo variants of these airships. Discovery Air said in a statement "we remain excited about this technology's potential and intend to continue working with HAV to promote the commercialization of heavy lift hybrid air vehicles," So perhaps they are waiting to see what the Army dose with LEMV before they buy, all the more reason for us to show our support of LEMV.

LEMV really couldn't have picked a better time (save last year) to take it's madden flight, as NASA had just completed one the most crazy and intense rover landings on the planet mars in human history. On top of that, American's are winning at the Olympics not only in terms of total gold medal count, but in producing the best Olympic athlete in known human history; Micheal Phelps. With all these reasons to be prideful to be an American it is likely that the US Economy will see a measure of rebound, which in turn is good for the Airship business as investors will be more likely to invest in airship technology. Blue Devil Block 2 recently got caned by the Airforce when it was only 95% complete. With LEMV coming out at such an opportune time, maybe the Airforce will consider spending the last 5 million needed to finish the 148 million dollar airship.

But even if that doesn't happen, LEMV is the flagship for proving or disproving the hybrid airship concept that the military will use to judge all future efforts that it invests in airship technology. If LEMV should explode in a ball of fire for no good reason, then the airship industry will most likely never recover, and it will mark the true death for airships as we will be more likely to see anti-gravity technology take hold before anyone is willing to invest in airship technology, and by then it will be too late.

On the other hand, if LEMV should happen to be so lucky as to be used in combat for extracting troops form a hostile environment, and happens to prove it is well suited for combat extraction missions because of it's near invonrability to bullets and Rocket Propeller Grenades. Hybrid Airships could quickly become the military's new best friend complementing or replacing helicopters for the same roles.

Given what good things have happened to us Amaricans in the last few weeks, I feel very optimistic about the future. These big old blimps will revolutionize the way we get around. And although things might seem grim now for the people of earth, the cavalry is coming. Airships have the power to revolutionize the cargo industry, and in-turn, raise the stranded of living for everyone on the planet. Just imagine this scenario, the United States could solves it's economic problems by building cargo hybrid airships for a new globule cargo transportation industry. Not only would it create high-tech good paying jobs, but it would help everyone on the planet get the supplies they desperately need.

This is indeed a great day for airship fans, but it just might be a great day for the world.

Airship Update

It seems things are going well in the airship world. LEMV is scheduled for first flight on the 5th or 7th of June. After that it will fly to Florida to pick up it's surveillance gondola and then head out to some Theater after that (hopefully not Occupy.)  Blue Devil is close to completion and it's first flight will probably take place around the same time. In a recent blog post the head of Mav6 vented his frustration with the Airforce on the continual snowballing of the Blue Devil Block 2 program and their resilience despite said fact. It appears that Blue Devil has come in about 40 million under budget, which when we take into consideration that most military contractors never live up to their promises and almost always go over budget, is no small feat.

Aeros is also getting Congressional funding and plans to have their prototype ML866 Aeroscraft ready by December. As you can see from the picture above they are on their way to reaching that goal.

If this pace keeps up Airships will be here sooner rather then later. Lets hope for the best!

Blue Devil Set for April Compleation?

Mav6 has it's own blog that provides very transparent details into the inter-workings of the Blue Devil Airship. Just after the Wired article was released Mav6 posted this on their blog, indicating that work is still underway on Blue Devil.

Oddly this news came out a day before Wired ran it's story that I posted about before, yet the post on Mav6's blog is dated just after Wired ran it's story. Could it be that Blue Devil is going to be completed before the air force gets a chance to scrap it? It makes sense to me that when something is so close to completion, why wouldn't one just finish it. Mav6 seems to employ an Out of the Box prospective when it comes to deference work. Usually if a contractor isn't being paid, they just stop working, particularly when it comes to defense contractors. Yet this might be an episode of a company's love for a big fat blimp. How could one let something as trivial as politics stop them from achieving their dreams?

The reasoning behind the termination of the Blue Devil Block 2 comes from inflated operational cost predictions made by the Airforce's Big Safar. They believe that, because of it's slow speed, Blue Devil will come under attack often and require constant repairs to continue operation. The problem is that this is a completely assumed cost based off no real world experience flying blimps over Afghanistan.

How many weapons dose the Taliban have that can reach 20,000 feet? I can defiantly see rebel forces shooting at an enemy spy blimp all day long from their encampments as part of the evenings entertainment. But at 20,000 feet the chances of them hitting it are about as good as a rampaging drunk shooting an apple to shreds from 3000 yards away with a sniper rifle. The bullets will go subsonic before they reach the blimp, greatly decreasing accuracy. And even if they do hit, the impact force will probably be so little they might just bounce off hall.

Heat seeking missiles don't work very well, because the heat signature from the engines is too low, and radar tracking missiles, which I doubt the Taliban has more then a few of,  don't work well ether because the radar signature is too little. It seems more likely that Big Safar inflated the projected operating costs because of some type of unclear bigotry toads this particular airship program. They tried to kill Blue Devil once already, so it's clear they have a grudge.

It would be nice if both LEMV and Blue Devil reached completion at relatively the same time, that way LEMV's advantages could be exemplified as it would be directly compared to more conventional airships with the same mission.

US Airforce spends 140 million to kick rocks.

The US Airforce has just cancelled Blue Devil Block 2. I know I said I didn't care for it but, can I really say I'm happy about this? What's the possibility that LEMV gets cancelled as well thanks to budget cuts and delays? And why didn't the Pentagon get it's act together to not wast 140 million on a project that offers no new benefits over conventional airship technology in the first place? Did they not even look at our past history with airship technology to know that conventional airships are plagued with problems?

The Hybrid Airship design is the future for all airship technology. That's just simple logic. Without some system of ballast control, conventional airships just don't work. They are hard to control, they can't hover, they're giant wind sails, and worst of all they have a chance to lose ballast control and fall out of the sky like the Macron or the Akron, or they can just go flying up into the sky until their balloons pop and then they come crashing down. Hybrids solve all these problems by using the shape of the hull like an airplane to maintain ballast control, which is what gives hybrids the edge they need to bring airship technology to the next level and become a powerhouse of economic growth and market stability. 

The Navy knows all about the intrinsic difficulties with airships from experience, but perhaps that is the problem; branches of the military not sharing information as they should. The Airforce has little experience with airships, so perhaps they where looking to outshine the Navy with the largest blimp they could make. The idea that they, of course, would somehow overcome all the problems that the navy could not solve. Why? Because they are better then the Navy, in their minds. So why would they ask the Navy for help?

This lack of ability for the American military branches to work with each other is a long standing problem in the US, and very well could be the death of this nation if we don't somehow fix it. Why can't we all just get past our own egos and work together? This ego-centric-mindedness is the real killer of this Nation, as much like in public school the military is filed with the ideology that one must be better then someone else when they are right, and to be wrong is to commit the "sin" of stupidity. Yet in the end, the Airforce ends up looking the bigger fool which is regrettable because it was probably just the arrogance of one or two bullheaded generals that screwed this whole thing up in the end, and now the entire Airforce must take the blame for it.

Hopefully we will learn from this. It's time for airship technology to reach new heights, and that path is clearly laid out in the Hybrid Airship design, not in the old ways of the old world. We must work together to survive and we must work together to thrive. If we keep on trying to be better then everyone else, without realizing that we all have different skill sets and we are all individuals, we aren't gonna make it. Respect and peace is the answer.