Video: The Army's Massive LEMV Airship Makes its Maiden Flight (Finally)

I like it!

As long as it flies high enough, to be out of range of anti air weapons.

This is great!

It was moving so fast! I couldn't even see it!

Pretty cool glimpse. I wish the video was longer though.

@Robot
It's pretty likely that if this went into service, it would be used to carry cargo or carry out some of the safer jobs like reconaissance from far off with powerful video cameras or something. I haven't seen much of this airship, so I could be wrong about some stuff I said.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Endurance_Multi-intelligence_Vehicle

"....Technical specifications

The LEMV will include the capability to operate at 20,000 feet above mean sea level, possess a 2,000 mile radius of action, have a 21-day on-station availability, consume 16 kilowatts of electrical power, have reduced flight-hour costs compared to manned flights, be runway-independent and possess the ability to carry several different sensors at the same time.

Combined with an array of payloads - including ground moving target indicator radar, Electro Optical/Infra-Red sensors, communications relay, blue force tracking, signal intelligence, and electronic counter measures - the LEMV will augment existing ISR platforms to provide additional capabilities.

The LEMV will provide a possible solution to communications beyond the line-of-sight to the user, signals intelligence collection and almost any other type of payload configuration that meets the power, weight and size requirements.

By providing this all-source sensor data to existing ground stations, the data is available to multiple users and analysts.

This interoperability with existing tasking, processing exploitation and dissemination has the potential to improve information-poor situations, mitigating Warfighter gaps and existing shortfalls through multi-intelligence sensor integration.

The LEMV will enable the Office for the OSD to fly the most technologically advanced payloads in the near term as they become available.

Northrop Grumman has designed their system to integrate into the Army’s existing common ground station command centers, and equipment used by ground troops in forward operating bases.

The LEMV’s skin - a blend of Vectran, Kevlar and Mylar - will be able to cope with a “reasonable amount of small arms fire.”

The airship is a hybrid air vehicle (HAV) and it has a number of advantages over fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). A HAV uses aerodynamic lift like a conventional plane to take off before using helium to keep it in the sky once it is airborne. Engines on board are then used to move while it monitors events on the ground.

The LEMV could also be used to move heavy equipment while in Afghanistan, a massive advantage over competing UAVs.

Northrop estimates that the biggest threat to the craft is weather...."

@Grauda
According to Northrup Grumman it has a ceiling of 22,000 ft, so it would be out of the reach of conventional anti-aircraft guns/artillery at that altitude. However, a large surface to air missile like a SA-2 can go much, much higher. It could go over enemy territory as long as it stayed out of the range of large(ish) SAMS.

This is the start of something big. This is the first production hybrid(heavier-than-air) airship ever to fly. The LEMV can provide astonishingly cheap surveillance, or haul seven to twenty tons of cargo. This hybrid will open the door to cargo, firefighting, even luxury liner airships and flying hospitals, which are currently being developed by a variety of different companies.

Just as important as funding and a market niche, if not more important, is something in the real-world, a proof of concept that provides not just training and practical experience, but a vision that is far more compelling than any theoretical design or computer graphic.

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Always defer to facts rather than philosophy.

"The LEMV isn’t really a blimp. Technically, it’s something called a hybrid airship, which gains lift from 3 different sources. One is the same aerostatic lift that a blimp gets, from the same onboard helium. Another is aerodynamic lift, now that composite materials allow rigid, shaped hull designs that aren’t just balloons. The final element is vectored thrust from 4 diesel engines and vector vanes, which builds on aerodynamic lift.

That combination is very helpful, because it can eliminate one of the biggest problems with blimps: sensitive equilibrium. A conventional blimp must have more buoyancy than payload, in order to fly. If it has too much buoyancy, however, it becomes very difficult to land. That isn’t a big problem if the mission is to fly over a local football stadium, but if you’ve just offloaded many tons of cargo, or finished up a 3-week mission and burned about 18,000 pounds of fuel, it’s a different story. For a blimp, the problem could be solved with ballast, but it’s an inefficient approach that creates its own hazards and difficulties. For an unmanned airship, it may even be a non-starter. A hybrid airship’s varied sources of lift gives it more options, hence more flexibility. Ongoing research into technologies like hovercraft/suck-down skirts would offer even more flexibility on the ground.

Northrop Grumman Director of Airship Programs Alan Metzger told The Engineer magazine that he expects LEMV to have about 3 weeks endurance, carry 2,500 pounds of payload, and travel at speeds between 30 – 80 knots/ He added that:

“When you do the maths on that you’re talking about $20,000 to keep the vehicle in the air for three weeks [DID: 3,500 gallons]. It’s vastly cheaper to operate than many conventional aircraft today…. Some of the characteristics of our vehicle allow you to make trades between how long you’d like to stay in the air and how much cargo you’d like to carry. We have the ability to trade 23 days to go 1000 miles and carry 15, 20, 30,000 pounds…. We’re green, we use a quarter of the fuel as the same payload of cargo aircraft… there are fewer moving parts. there’s less maintenance…. Now we have the opportunity to show that a vehicle of this class and size can carry the required payloads, create the endurance and persistent surveillance that war-fighters are looking for.”

Fortunately, these 3 week missions won’t require a crew, but deploying to the mission zone at home or abroad means flight through civil airspace. For now, that means manned flight options, in addition to remote piloting or autonomous modes. Piloting it has been described as being closer to operating a ship than to flying a plane, and winds above 23 mph or so will be a challenge for the design team to tackle."

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Rise-of-the-Blimps-The-US-Armys-LEMV-06438/

"Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon."

@J.James is on to something. I'd love to see this type of heavy lifting capability fighting fires out West. I think a helicopter can lift something like 5 tons of water in a bucket and dump it. This sucker could land in the water, take on 20 tons, and make it rain.

I like the cargo practicalities more than I like the fire fighting and luxury ideas. It'd be relatively cheap to move freight long distances relatively quickly, ergo this could save the shipping industry milions over time.

As mentioned in Robots post, weather is ALWAYS a problem. Look at Normandy, how they had to keep delating the landing because of weather.

And I swear to the Lord above, if anyone mentions "flying battleships" or "armed airships"...

This would not be armed. Rather, this is the "eye in the sky" to network infantry on the ground with UAVs, air and artilliary support, and sub-satalite communications.

In fact, thinking of it as a really low orbit geo-stationary satalite for imagine and communications is likely the closest match for what it would likely do most of the time.

Landing communication relays in high, difficult to access, line of sight positive locations WHILE pushing the network forward would be a possible use as well.

Putting situational awareness in the hands of troops in the fields and commanders in the tents in real time is its primary goal. Any force still opperating sophisticated anti-air capabilities would likely not have ground forces in play yet - meaning there would not yet be a need for this tool.

Cruise missiles and stealth bombers exist for early air supperiority. This tool is to make that supperiority a greater asset to the ground forces, rather than simple a protection and support function.