Blackwater expands its fleet of airships

[unhappycamper]

Source: Air Force Times



Airmen might soon look up to find Blackwater airships patrolling the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan. The company says its new Polar 400 airships can fly twice as long as Predator UAVs and operate at one-fifth the cost.


Blackwater expands its fleet of airships
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jul 19, 2008 7:59:19 EDT

Blackwater Worldwide is building up its own Air Force.

Airmen might soon find Blackwater blimps patrolling Iraq and Afghanistan skies in addition to its helicopter and light transport aircraft already flying thousands of missions in theater.

According to Blackwater Worldwide CEO Erik Prince, eight Blackwater CASA 212 light transport aircraft flew 11,000 sorties in Afghanistan last year supporting 38 combat outposts over 19,000 square miles. Its aircraft transported more than 40,000 personnel and 9.5 million pounds of supplies last year.

“We moved about 40,000 passengers, and our total costs, our total invoice for that mission is about what the U.S. Air Force is paying for one new C-27,” he said.

Read more: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/07/airforce_blac... /

[asjr]

1. The League of Mercenaries just

keeps on growing.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Whoo hoo

I bet it's real difficult to take one of those suckers down.

[Trajan]

4. Yeah ... That is one stealthy design ....

And FAST ?

What is it: Hypersonic capable ?

Who could POSSIBLY shoot that thing down ?

Uh huh ....

[awoke_in_2003]

6. That is probably part of the plan...

You would have to put a lot of holes in it to bring it down quick- they can probably limp back to base and repair it- charging the goverment 100 times what it is worth to repair.

[bean fidhleir]

17. Fire a flechette cannister at the middle. Poof. (nt)

[awoke_in_2003]

18. That would still work in their favor

sure, a couple people would die, but look how much they could charge the government for a new blimp.

[LiberalFighter]

22. Wouldn't even need to be that. If close enough a barrage of flaming arrows will do the job.

[tchunter]

29. a beehive round? hell, it looks like it could be perforated with a frisbee.. N/T

[Bake]

35. One RPG ought to do the trick.

And it's not like the "terrists" haven't figured that one out yet.

Bake

[Xithras]

37. Would an RPG even detonate against this?

It's my understanding that an RPG round needs to hit something solid to activate the detonator. Would a soft cloth balloon even be solid enough to detonate the thing?

[Bake]

39. Hell if I know. Maybe the gondola?

The thing is a big honkin' slow-moving target. I wouldn't get in it or anywhere near it!

Bake

[Xithras]

38. If designed right, you would need a LOT of holes.

The big balloon is usually just a cover for the actual gas-carrying balloons inside. They are typically set up so that the rupture of any one gas bag is insufficient to bring the whole thing down.

A drastic increase in the number of balloons inside, or the creation of some sort of gas-carrying honeycomb chamber, would make them fairly safe in a warzone, since anyone shooting it down would need to rupture a huge number of bags. You could literally cram thousands of gas bags into one of these.

[EvilAL]

28. It's what they can hide inside the blimp

and float around with that makes me wonder why anyone would build a blimp for a warzone.

[boomerbust]

3. First mission

Denver - August 08

[IndianaGreen]

5. And our media made such a fuzz from the two mercenaries captured by FARC

You can't have it both ways! Mercenaries are mercenaries, whether they work for Blackwater or CACI, or operate in Afghanistan or Colombia.

[Tutonic]

8. Good point.

[Larkspur]

7. Blackwater is a modern day pirate enterprise

Remember Morgan went into piracy at the blessing of the British government back in the 17th Century and got out just before the Brits decided to outlaw piracy. Eric Prince is no James Morgan. He's more like a Nazi renegade setting up shop.

[pattmarty]

9. they're relatively cheap, that's why they buy them.................

..........But they are also SLOW, and hopefully, anybody with a RPG (which is VERY fast) will bring them down along with their Fascist president Erik "the fascist" Prinz.

[zeemike]

13. They would have to fly pretty low to be shot down by RPGs

Perhaps they are just LSMTs,,,large slow moving targets... for the Ground to air missles...let them shoot down the cheep things and not the expensive ones like copters...besides the air men that fly them are expendable.

[ret5hd]

10. One word: BB-guns

[1monster]

11. How long before the Blackwater Group is deployed in all US cities, to "protect" us from

"terrorism" and other euphemist-type threats al la New Orleans?

Who will protect us from the "protectors"?

Does anyone else see a correlation between the Blackwater Group and the Brown Shirt and Red Shirts of another era?

[ret5hd]

12. I think a better correlation may be the Pinkertons et al...

protecting the coal mine operators from the miners.

[1monster]

14. Perhaps, but did the Pinkertons engage to fight wars out of the US?

I think the scope of Blackwater is to be far greater than the Pinkertons.

(Doesn't the Pinkertons still exist today as "security" providers?

[slampoet]

31. I Believe that The Pinkertons were a private overseas fighting force.

Don't quote me on this but weren't they in Central America? Something to do with fruit.



But either way they did operate in indian land, US land before statehood and Canada.

[zeemike]

15. I think the ultimate goal is to privatize law enforcement

Big business can do everything better don't you know.

[bertman]

16. Let's see. So far we've started privatizing prisons. We have Boy George's private army who

protect Merka overseas and IN MERKA. Our police and military are training with hand-picked civilians to "maintain order" during domestic "disturbances" or martial law. The Executive branch can spy on Americans anywhere at anytime using any means they see fit by simply having someone sign an order. Our President can SIMPLY DECLARE any American citizen to be a terrist who needs to be imprisoned indefinitely without rights and can be TORTURED. Our Democratic Party legislative branch goes blind, deaf, dumb and shaky when any form of right-wing wrongdoing is revealed.

If it looks like a fascist dictatorship, smells like a fascist dictatorship, and sounds like a fascist dictatorship . . .

Then, it must be a constitutional democracy. Right??

[Beartracks]

19. Finally...

>operate at one-fifth the cost

Finally, we're getting more bang for our Iraq buck!

[MichiganVote]

20. So which students at which US college is Blackwater going to murder?

[Gman]

21. and it presents 10x a bigger target!

[tinrobot]

30. ...and a 10x slower one, too!

[catnhatnh]

23. True facts....

I had occasion to fly on one of Virgin Lightship's blimps....This one looks similar. They are inflated with helium which is non-flamable.The engines were capable of forty knots which meant in a heavy wind they fly-backward.The cabin looks similar-ours held a maximum 5 people. That one may hold eight...Bouyancy was critical-when I entered as other passengers exited our weights were checked and balanced by adding or subtracting 5 lb. shot bags-since the flight was about 20 minutes the pilot wanted to take off at 10 lbs. positive weight as that would equal the fuel burned and allow him to land at 0 lbs.-if we landed lighter and the ground crew missed the ropes we would have to go around....

So shooting one in the envelope might bring one down, but slowly.The problem is the gondola being of aircraft aluminum and thin skin-A good .50 caliber could rip it (and the people in it) apart at even long ranges, meaning any alttitude it can fly at and observe actions on the ground.Over 10,000 feet you need oxygen and it does not have it...The one shown doesn't even appear to have any long range sensors...

I'll tell a story I promised not to tell in the early 90's.A guy named Rick Hoffecker was then the chief pilot for Virgin-nice guy with a great bio. But the one thing he didn't want published was that they were often shot at in the night as they passed over rural southern areas. Their blimp was internally lit to illuminate advertising on the envelope. He felt they were so vulnerable that giving rednecks ideas would endanger the crew.

So a blimp might be appropriate at a Nascar race where shooting at it might cause expulsion-but as a war machine they have been obsolete since the synchronised aircraft machine gun was invented by Fokker circa 1915...

The fact is in peace it can be a fine asset.In war it becomes a deathtrap for it's crew.

[Ian David]

24. Uh-oh... Blackwater Sunday!

[paparush]

32. That was the first thing I thought of!

[Pastiche423]

25. “Our footprint and our cost to the taxpayer is mighty low,”

Prince said.

So We, the People are paying for these monstrosities?

[pinniped]

26. Fill that fucker up with hydrogen.

.

[not fooled]

27. Oh, the humanity!

[Carmavore]

33. you mean, huge manatee

[Vidar]

34. Hermann Goehring would be proud.

[guitar man]

36. "Blackwater CEO...

..praises cutting edge flight technology "