Here is some more info:
THE BATTLE TO BUILD THE NAVY'S BLIMP - NYTimes.com
This was the original article promising all.
Then here is an article describing the efforts in the late 80s:
Airshipsonline : Airships : SkyShip 5000
Finally, here is a quote from another forum:
I can add some information...
The U.S. Navy had been interested in LTA technology since the early 1980s. This led to the Patrol Airship Concept Evaluation (PACE) ca. 1983, and some tests of a Skyship 500. In 1985, NAVAIR commissioned design studies for an AEW airship to work with surface action groups. Boeing, Goodyear, and a Westinghouse/Airship Industries team made proposals. These studies were for vehicles running ~3,000,000 cubic feet.
In 1986, the program was redirected toward an Operational Development Model - basically a proof-of-concept vehicle with an E-2 radar suite. Boeing dropped out, Goodyear bid a ZPG-3W with turboprop engines, WAI bid the Sentinel 5000. WAI won. A mockup of the gondola was built at the Weeksville, NC, hangar.
The USN pulled out in 1988, IIRC. Part of the A-12 eating all of Naval Aviation. But DARPA was interested in the airframe as a carrier for low-frequncy radars and pressed on with the program as funding permitted. Development went slowly, and the fire in the Weeksville hangar in 1994 (IIRC) pretty well killed the program off.
The performance numbers are off...the endurance was 60 hours, not 60 days. But it was planned to refuel at sea, making a 30-day patrol practical.
The politics of the program were very interesting. Within the Navy, the problem was that the YEZ-2 did not have a pointy nose or fire belching out the back. Not to mention that it was a direct challenge to the E-2, and a possible challenge to the P-3...and in the platform-centered communities of that era, this was politically very dangerous.
On top of that, WAI made some politically tone-deaf moves. Most of the subcontractors were in the UK...useful for the Airship Industries design team, bad for Congressional support. The Goodyear design might have been more successful, despite being technically outclassed, on that point alone.
The link is:
Westinghouse Airship Industries SkyShip 5000 and Sentinel 5000
What comes out of it is
60 HOURS between refuels - that is 2.5 days not WEEKS!
The B Word