PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - New Gen AirShips - Hybrid Air Vehicles, UK
Old 13th Feb 2015, 16:13
  #217 (permalink)  
LowObservable
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
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What I see in that chart is a company supporting itself with small conventional airships (which everyone agrees are niche devices, no arguments there) while it tries, mostly with very little outside funding, to develop big airships and, later, hybrids.

The various hybrids, by the way, are all aimed at addressing the speed and ground handling issues that are recognized LTA problems.

LEMV was overweight, for sure, but the GAO's explanation that it was 12,500 lb overweight because of the tail fins sounds simplistic. It was more a case of having an airframe designer in the UK, making the envelope in a U.S. textile mill and then making the radar guys do the integration under Army management. And the whole thing cost one-tenth as much as JLENS.
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