Lighter then air return to the mean

why doesnt gravity affect zeppelins? is it because the earth is flat and gravity doesnt exist and the law is things heavier fall and things lighter like helium rise?

>Dang, that's a big shadow, I wonder what that is

i say they could be used for border patrol, if not for intimidation then for night time observation. for a bit of controversy i'd say we go back to using hydrogen because we've made great advances in safety and fire retardant materials. fite me?

Google the blimp that watched Cuba "Fat Albert"

i was thinking more along these lines
youtube.com/watch?v=g59PX4xlgNg

What's it do that drones don't already do?

This fucking thing could float at 30 000 feet, well out of range.

We’ve had balloons touch the edge of space cholo

And do what exactly? Monitor with extensive and complex optics like satellites already do? Launch long range ballistic missiles like satellites already do? Launch small interceptor missiles like drones do much closer to the targets? Great plan.

hover quietly in place while 3-4 crew members sit in the carriage watching out for drug smugglers while playing poker?

>Launch long range ballistic missiles like satellites already do

I wasn’t aware I was in a Tom Clancy novel, when the fuck did this happen?

And have to return to base often to switch crew? Sounds long and expensive. Why not automate it?

Its cheaper and more versatile than a satellite.
Satellites have to orbit thew earth, this could float over target for days if need be

Never because we're a signatory on a treaty that forbids weaponizing space

Damn the fact that we only have one satellite in space and lack the capabilities to count the number of nose hairs on an individual in one place indefinitely.

CHEAPER AND MORE VERSATILE MOTHER FUCKER

So itll replenish the lost funds putting the satellite up in space? Its more susceptible to weather conditions? Requires a new logistical chain? Requires considerable defenses due to its slow nature? Can be seen with the naked eye? Fucking hell you've sold me I'll take twelve dozen.

God, that sounds /comfy/

Why not keep them in the air for about a week or so?

>talking out of your ass, the post.
Satellites have predictable paths with limited maximum optical resolution thanks to physics that can't be broken. They can be avoided & even spoofed with decoys that you can buy on Amazon / Alibaba.
Satellites don't, I repeat DO NOT, launch ballistic missiles.
Nor do any drones flying today launch interceptor missiles, they just spy and pound ground.

A modern (both in design and materials) zeppelin could outmatch fixed wing drones in everything except for speed.
Give a modern zeppelin UCAV an Advanced Tactical Laser, paint it sky blue, and have it zap poachers in Africa from 20,000ft.

Yeah because it’s not like satellites are affected by cloud cover or anything

this guy gets it

Attached: macon.gondola.with.crew.jpg (1181x928, 217K)

Still has to come back down losing valuable watching time. Also depends on how far over enemy territory you are which would dictate how far you'd need to go to find an appropriate landing zone. In the process imagine all the nefarious deeds the enemy would be up to because you have to go land and change crew! They'd wax their curly mustaches and laugh! Oh the horror!

So it does nothing more than current tech while also being slower? Hmmm great pitch you've got there.

>not having more than one balloon in the air
>not have a ceremonial changing of the guard
>patrolling farther than you have to
>not just watching the gaps in the wall
you're thinking this is a be all solution or something? the zeppelins would just relay messages to ground forces already rolling and because they're going to be a hundreds if not thousands of feet up in the air their line of sight is going to increase dramatically. you don't need to run back and forth between two points when you're literally watching hundreds of acres of land from the comfort of your onboard lazyboy. and what they can't build a new special blimp only airport or two closer to the border?

So you want something more expensive and taxing than a CCTV camera on a post that has done the job excellently for decades? You must not pay taxes.

>does nothing more than
>A modern (both in design and materials) zeppelin could outmatch fixed wing drones in everything except for speed.

>does nothing more than
>zeppelin could outmatch fixed wing drones in everything
>except for speed

Reading comprehension motherfucker.

And obviously the pitch is great enough seeing as both the CIA and Army both throw money at their R&D, unfortunately for the wannabe Zeppelin captains those two departments just want autonomous versions for observation and logistics duties.

I've always wondered about this for either a refuelling craft (I mean the f35 can hover, so it could refuel it easily, but obviously not other craft) or as a drone deployment rig. Sorta like an aircraft carrier aircraft. You could have solar panels on it to power locomotion. There's a swedish company that makes them right now as luxury cruise ships.

So its not fast? Isn't speed like the most crucial part in any combat scenario? Or can we call a time out on the bad dudes now?

lot of good those cameras are doing, one spray from a can and they go dark. we need human eyes on the situation if we want patrolling to be effective. If my tax dollars are going to go anywhere at least let it be something effective not just convenient

They only sprung for one camera? Shit wasn't alerted when someone stuck a ladder on the post? Guards/automated turrets didn't notice anything that tripped proximity sensors? Sounds like a very expensive answer to a problem no one in the real world had.

you only need to down one camera to sneak past the guy on his fourth cup of coffee, if you trip one motion sensor you just gun it to evade border agents. you want an expensive solution to a problem no one in the real world has ever had?
>WALL

cruising at 100k feet would be its only defense.

We don't even have sensors on large stretches of the wall and people still get caught by border agents so what's your thought on that? You think its going to be one camera every 10,000 miles set up so a wayward walmart bag blowing in the breeze can take them out? Jesus Christ putting cameras every inch of the wall and hiring a million patrollers with benefits and pension is cheaper than a fleet of blimps.

kek read that as "cursing"

Attached: 91sn32Q.jpg (350x265, 94K)

ever been in a skyscraper? literally miles of real estate stretch out in front of you, you don't need a fleet just enough to cover whatever fence or wall is in place and let the greenies deal with the gaps in the wall, if you concentrate your efforts where the border is most vulnerable then you have a better chance of catching pedro, pablo, y paco while the rest struggle with breaching. and you're right hiring more agents would help tremendously, so why isn't being done? why do i have to come up with this stir crazy shit to try and fix things?

Because people smarter than you have deemed it unnecessary. Think about it blimps have been around for a while and tech is there so why aren't they a thing? And you're certainly not the first person to come up with this idea so settle down.

>Because people smarter than you have deemed it unnecessary.
then why aren't they hiring more agents? why is the solution a fucking wall that's a hella more expensive pipe dream?

Damn then why'd they get rid of the one monitoring Cuba? Oh wait, costs. Whoopsie daisy.

oh wait why isn't the wall built yet? oh yeah, costs at least a zeppelin is a less asinine idea

It's ok though, it was a nice idea user, we'll put it on the fridge if that'll make you happy.

gee user really? right next to yours?

its ok, both of you guys are fags.

Never made it up there fortunately, don't have the propensity to post dumb shit I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>they could be used for border patrol
BP already has sensors on tethered blimps.

i just want to see dirigibles make a comeback that doesn't involve a sporting event
>¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe not the battlefield but I'm surprised we haven't seen more use out of solar airships

Flatten the shape of the balloon, slap solar panels on top and you could have an unmanned camera system patrolling the border 24/7.

helium is expensive and world is running out of it
especially when you consider a lot of important technology needs helium to run

hydrogen should be safe these days and it has twice the lifting power
the problem is the Hindenburg is so ingrained that nobody wants to test hydrogen filled blimps, even if they have good safety

It already has, called PETIDS or something. Not sure if that's right since I've never seen it written. There's one over BAF and I'm sure a couple other bases.

My buddy said he saw a round from a phalanx (20mm) hit it and bounce off one time.

also armed with eight good old fashioned manually fired ma-deuce m2 .50 caliber belt-fed heavy machineguns in a pair of two-gun pairs mounted port & starboard amidships plus a quad-gun bellygun bubble turret based on the sperry ball turrets of the b-17 and b-24
>often relieve the thankful enlisted guys who man it regularly in order to spend most of my off-duty time there instead of sleeping in my tiny shared ala "submarine shifts" because airborne 24/7
>constantly fire on random targets of opportunity like suspicious trucks and suspicious goatherders on the ground thousands of feet directly below while fucking a modularly installed onahole which vibrates with the gunfire while my wife or one of the sluts on radio talks dirty to me while suspended facing earthwards in a cramped glass cage
>drop gravity bombs and paratroopers on anything beneath dirigible
>disappear whenever by generating water vapor around dirigible with [redacted]
>crew named our dirigible "dread zeppelin" because "led zeppelin" was taken
>don't you dare call it a blimp

Attached: 1549827345281.jpg (384x420, 34K)

(whoops meant to post that *after* this -- not before):
>be usaf captain in the year 2031
>command dirigible
>crew numbers twelve officers such as self and enlisted personnel
>airship capable of loitering in-situ miles above the ground for approximately three years without resupply
>self-sealing air bladders filled with helium plus trace amounts of exotic but "safe" chemicals serve as something along the lines of a battery or capacitor
>crew occupies ventral gondola under and coaxial hall inside dirigible
>crew launches and recovers drones and light aircraft above dirigible on dorsal flightdeck
>underside of dirigible is armored with layers of superkevlar and reactive armor
>solar cells supplement special [classified] power sources to provide tons of juice for the point defense lasers and rail guns
>drone combat air patrols run 24/7 to protect dirigible
>laugh as enemy troops waste bullets that simply cannot harm us whenever we hover low enough to draw fire
>laugh harder when our troops on the ground fuck these fools up by attacking the sources of the gunfire
>watch everything
>listen to everything
>provide perfect realtime command/control/communications bridge between all involved elements with bird's eye views of everything in-situ

Attached: 1551318275629.jpg (1016x1090, 389K)

^...tiny shared *quarters* ala "submarine shifts"....
>fug

Attached: 1552260851774.png (700x700, 615K)

Why not just have a drone carrier zeppelin? Its not like launching planes from altitude would be hard. And you could use a reverse sky hook system to retrieve them.

Would deployable airships be something?

A submarine could surface real quick,deploy a airship and submerge.