In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" wrote:

As to blimps, you really have to have air superiority (or outright
air dominance) in order to make them viable; in such conditions, I'd
think they might be a decent platform for battlefield surveillance
using a MTI radar (sort of a long duration mini-JSTARS, more
comparable to the current ARL-M) or in the SIGINT role, where they
can conduct their missions from a position a few klicks to the rear
of the FLOT.

With modern construction techniques, a stealthy, ultra-lightweight blimp
with a sensor package should be able to perch up at 120,000 feet or
higher, be hard to find, harder to reach, and useful for direct ground
observation for hundreds of miles in any direction, reporting back with
a highly directional laser-based commlink.

--
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Slam on brakes accordingly.