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#31
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In article , "Mike Bandor"
wrote: "Dave Holford" wrote in message ... It was only a few years ago that concerted efforts failed to destroy a large ballon which managed to drift clear across the Atlantic despite numerous holes being shot in it. I wonder if they really are all that vulnerable? Dave They've changed the aerostats so they now have burn wires built into the main gas bag. If one escapes, rather than scrambling a plane they just press a button and it quarters the main gas bag. No more chasing it across the gulf or countryside. I wouldn't call it a military lighter-than-air vehicle, but I was sufficiently shocked and awed while trying to get my rental car back to the Colorado Springs airport, in the midst of a ballooning festival. There is something especially surreal about having a 110-foot tall Energizer Bunny fload gracefully over the road. |
#32
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Keith Willshaw wrote:
Airship Industries were trying to sell their products for the AEW role. The platform was based on their Sentinel 5000 product fitted with the radar system from the E2-C Hawkeye . http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/airships/Sentinel_5000/ Cool! When I become incredibly, fabulously wealthy, I may opt for a 6-8 passenger personal airship rather than attempt to convert a Global Hawk as my private aircraft. SMH |
#33
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Stephen Harding wrote:
Keith Willshaw wrote: Airship Industries were trying to sell their products for the AEW role. The platform was based on their Sentinel 5000 product fitted with the radar system from the E2-C Hawkeye . http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/airships/Sentinel_5000/ Cool! When I become incredibly, fabulously wealthy, I may opt for a 6-8 passenger personal airship rather than attempt to convert a Global Hawk as my private aircraft. SMH I have come into this thread late ............ Has anyone mentioned why they are called blimps???? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++ Ken Duffey - Flanker Freak & Russian Aviation Enthusiast Flankers Website - http://www.flankers.co.uk/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++ |
#34
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#35
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"B2431" wrote in message
... The two most popular theories a 1) some British officer thumped one and the sound returned was "blimp." 2) one of the early designations was "balloon, class B, limp" which was shortened to blimp in conversation. An interesting aside is the term "dirigible" which some people use to differentiate between blimps and rigid airships. The term "dirigible" is from Latin which means give direction to. In other words it's steerable which both blimps and rigid airships are. From the OED: blimp, n. [Of uncertain origin. Said to have been coined by the aviator Horace Shortt (see quot. 1918) or by Lieut. A. D. Cunningham (1951 Aeroplane 5 Oct.), and to have been based on the adj. LIMP.] 1. A small non-rigid airship orig. consisting of a gas-bag with the fuselage of an aeroplane slung underneath; in the war of 1939-45 the name was sometimes applied to a barrage balloon. 1916 ROSHER In R.N.A.S. 11 Feb. 146 Visited the Blimps..this afternoon at Capel. 1918 Illustr. Lond. News 27 July 96 Nobody in the R.N.A.S. ever called them anything but 'Blimps', an onomatopic name invented by that genius for apposite nomenclature, the late Horace Shortt. 1926 J. R. R. TOLKIEN in Year's Wk. Eng. Stud. 1924 52 It is perhaps more in accordance with their looks, history, and the way in which words are built out of the suggestions of others in the mind, if we guess that blimp was the progeny of blister + lump, and that the vowel i not u was chosen because of its diminutive significancetypical of war-humour. 1928 GAMBLE North Sea Air Station x. 149 The Submarine Scout non-rigid type. The name was abbreviated to S.S. airships, but they were generally known as 'Blimps'. 1934 Discovery Jan. 14/2 Excellent photographs..could probably be secured next summer from a small 'blimp' carrying a pilot and a photographer and directed by wireless telephony. 1939 War Illustr. 29 Dec. 538/1 The term 'blimp' originated in the last war, when British lighter-than-air aircraft were divided into A-rigid, and B-limp (i.e. without rigid internal framework). The modern barrage balloon may therefore be classed as a blimp. 1940 HARRISSON & MADGE War begins at Home v. 125 The [barrage] balloons, so suitably called blimps, became a major symbol in the first three months of the war. -- Andrew Chaplin SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO (If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.) |
#36
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Airships have also been used for testing Hyperspectral Imaging systems. See:
http://www.airship.flyer.co.uk/NewsA...ews19dec02.htm |
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