The US Army is preparing to have an eye 20,000 feet in the sky, and it should be ready by mid-2011. The Army’s Missile and Defense command plans to put the unmanned hybrid airship in air. It will be based on Lockheed Martin’s P-791 experimental hybrid airship, which had six test flights in 2006. Lockheed’s airship got 80% of its lift from bouncy, and the other 20% came from three downwards thrusters on each side of the 125-feet ship.
The new 250-feet long airship will be able to stay airborne for three weeks at a stretch, and this Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) will have a payload bay 40-feet long, 15-feet wide and 6 to 8 feet in height. The space will be utilized to install intelligence systems like radars and wide-area motion sensors.
Via: Aviation Week/ Gizmodo
