Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) April 23, 2003
Blimp makers rise to military's next task
Companies vie to build unmanned airship that flies higher, longer
By Peter Krouse
The hulking airship hangar at Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Akron campus hasn't been used for its intended purpose in more than 40 years.
But if the company wins a concept design competition, its legendary Airdock could be back in the business of assembling lighter-than-air vehicles within the next few years.
The Missile Defense Agency has awarded Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems a $2 million contract to design an unmanned solar-powered blimp that could maneuver well above the jetstream for at least 30 days, which would allow it to serve as a platform for cameras, radar and communications equipment.
The agency has awarded similar contracts to defense giant Boeing Co. and to Aeros Aeronautical Systems Corp. in Tarzana, Calif. Aeros is working with Northrop Grumman Corp., which purchased Lyndhurst-based TRW Inc. late last year.
The Missile Defense Agency expects to narrow the field by September to one or two candidates and to select one team in June 2004 to build and demonstrate a prototype by 2006.
Airships once were widely used by the military for aerial surveillance, but they were largely rendered obsolete by satellites and large ground-based radar. Plus, the blimps, which were manned, could only go so high and were grounded in bad weather. Blimps today are mostly used as floating billboards and to provide aerial views of sporting events.
Several technological advances have led the military to believe that high-altitude blimps can be useful, said a senior Missile Defense Agency official who declined to be named. That belief is fostered by growing confidence in unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Predator and Global Hawk that carry sensors and provide intelligence to battlefield commanders.
The high-altitude blimp could carry the same kind of sensors, only larger, and stay in the air much longer. The Missile Defense Agency envisions sending up cameras that could detect a rocket plume at takeoff or a warhead in flight. The U.S. Army thinks the blimp could be a communications relay, while North American Aerospace Defense Command hopes blimps can be used for air defense.
If selected to build its design, Lockheed would assemble its prototype in the Airdock, which is nearly 1,175 feet long and large enough to house the biggest of the ore freighters that ply the Great Lakes.
"I think it has the potential to be something substantial," said Ron Browning, Lockheed's director of business development for surveillance systems.
He declined to offer many specifics about the Lockheed Martin effort so as not to tip off the competition. For example, he wouldn't say how many of the 550 Lockheed Martin employees in Akron are assigned to the project.
The Akron campus of Lockheed Martin, formerly part of Goodyear Aerospace, has a legacy of developing lighter-than-air technology. Two massive dirigibles, which differ from blimps because they have internal skeletons, were built in the Airdock for the U.S. Navy in the 1930s. The last blimp was built there in 1960.
Loral Corp. bought Goodyear Aerospace in 1987, then sold it to Lockheed Martin in 1996.
The Akron operation still contributes to the development of airships. It built the envelope for the latest Goodyear blimp, owned by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the former parent of Goodyear Aerospace. It also designed several aerostats - tethered balloons - that hover up to 15,000 feet above the southern border of the United States, providing surveillance for the U.S. Air Force. Lockheed Martin designed and built radars installed on the aerostats, too.
An aircraft brake company uses the Airdock hangar for storage and manufacturing now. Rubber sheathing covers much of the original corrugated metal skin.
Browning said he expects stiff competition for the production job. Boeing builds airplanes, rockets and satellites and is a major defense contractor. Aeros is a much younger company, only 9 years old, but it is owned by Igor Pasternak, who was involved with lighter-than-air technology before immigrating to the United States from Ukraine when the Soviet Union was collapsing, said Fred Edworthy, vice president for programs at Aeros.
Aeros, which has 32 employees, has built 12 free-flying blimps, including four certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, and 15 tethered aerostats, Edworthy said.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit defense analysis group in suburban Washington, called the high-altitude airship a "fun little program" that has potential, especially as a replacement for aerostats.
"I mean, the Hindenburg not withstanding, I continue to be a big fan of balloons," he said.
Copyright © 2003, Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
