Skunk Works to Build Radar Airship for DARPA

Skunk Works to Build Radar Airship for DARPA
Graham Warwick 4/27/2009 4:42 PM CDT

http://snipurl.com/gwd6g [www_aviationweek_com]

Who thought it would get this far? Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has won
a $100 million DARPA/USAF contract to demonstrate a massive radar
integrated into the structure of a unmanned airship. The ultimate
objective is to build a 6,000 square-meter active-array radar into a
solar-powered stratospheric airship that can stay aloft for a decade. As
a first step, the Integrated Sensor Is Structure (ISIS) program plans to
build and fly a subscale prototype with a 100 square-meter X-band radar
and 600 square-meter UHF band radar to prove the full-sized beast could
be manufactured and how it would perform. Northrop Grumman was the
losing bidder.

Because of the sheer size of the active electronically scanned array,
DARPA calcuates an operational system would be able to detect and track
small cruise missiles and UAVs up to 600km away, and dismounted soldiers
and camouflaged vehicles up to 300km. Raytheon will develop the AESAs
for the demonstrator. The airship would be more like a satellite than an
aircraft, operating entirely autonomously after launch. Lockheed's Akron
plant, home of the Goodyear Blimp, will help with design.

Bluuuue Rajah wrote:
Skunk Works to Build Radar Airship for DARPA
Graham Warwick 4/27/2009 4:42 PM CDT

http://snipurl.com/gwd6g [www_aviationweek_com]

Who thought it would get this far? Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has won
a $100 million DARPA/USAF contract to demonstrate a massive radar
integrated into the structure of a unmanned airship.


Something like this has been done before; the Navy's biggest blimp, the
ZPG-3W, had a large (42 foot) rotating radar antenna inside of its gasbag.
Four of these were built in the late 1950's.

Pat

"Bluuuue Rajah" Bluuuuue@Rajah. wrote in message
. 33.102...

Who thought it would get this far?

You mean on to sci.SPACE.history?

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Something like this has been done before; the Navy's biggest blimp, the
ZPG-3W, had a large (42 foot) rotating radar antenna inside of its gasbag.
Four of these were built in the late 1950's.

I found a reference that puts the weight of that radar at 12,000 lbs!
According to a friend of mine who was a Navy blimp crewman his younger days,
at least one of those radars came lose and crashed through the gondola,
smashing the operator. (a quick Google search did not yield a reference to
that accident)

To me, the LTA displays are some of the more fascinating artifacts at the
National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola FL.

Vaughn

vaughn wrote:
To me, the LTA displays are some of the more fascinating artifacts at the
National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola FL.


There's a good book on the history of the U.S. Navy's LTA program
entitled "Sky Ships" by William F. Althoff (Orion Books, 1990, ISBN
0-517-56904-3) which has a cutaway of the ZPG-3W in it showing the radar
antenna inside the gasbag. The scanning radar was actually mounted high
up in the gasbag, just slightly forward of the external top bump which
housed the height finding radar. You could climb up a tunnel from the
control car to a compartment just behind the radars... I assume to work
on there electronics while in flight.
You want to see a really odd airship, check out this thing I stumbled on
today, which I had never heard of befo
http://www.oldbeacon.com/beacon/airships/zmc-2.htm

"-- Historical footnote --
At the same time the ZMC-2 was being built, another concern was
exploring the concept of metalclad airships.
In Glendale, California Benton Slate was building the Slate All-Metal
Airship (MD-2) which featured a corrugated skin, an innovative steam
propulsion systems and a number of other innovations. The world's
largest form press was assembled at Grand Central Airport to build this
airship."

Here's photos and drawings of it:
http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive/...le.pat-dwg.jpg
http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive/...ble.inshed.jpg
http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive/....dirigible.jpg
http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive/...irigible.1.jpg
(those are from he http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive3.htm )

This was one weird airship, intended to pull itself through the air by
using the Coanda effect to suck air aft over its hull after it was
ejected from its bow, and run the airship through the skies in its own
bubble of air.
The patent for it is he http://tinyurl.com/ccwxel
(Patent number is 1,642,270)
Although large dirigibles do generate a pretty thick boundary layer
around themselves in flight (on big WW-I Zeppelins it could be as much
as four feet thick at full speed), there is no way in the world that
your are going to generate enough air volume with that small nose blower
to get this idea to work.
I had never heard of this thing before today, and I note none of the
photos actually show it airborne.

Pat

On Apr 28, 5:03*am, "Alan Erskine" wrote:
"Bluuuue Rajah" Bluuuuue@Rajah. wrote in message

. 33.102...



Who thought it would get this far?

You mean on to sci.SPACE.history?

Well, arguably. How high would it have to float around to get the
claimed line-of-sight area of regard (a circle of 600 km radius)?

Sounds like it might be one of the emergent class of vehicles (of
various technologies) sometimes called "atmospheric satellites," able
to persist in the awkward (and wide) range of altitudes where the air
is too thin for large/manned aircraft and too soupy for stable
orbits. A more obviously space relevant use of such things might be
flying on Mars, where IIRC the surface pressure is comparable to Earth
at maybe 100.000 feet and the oxygen content wouldn't nearly support
air breathing engines.

The specs strike me as being audacious in many aspects -- not just the
electronics and the power source, but the ten-year untended life. Of
course, that too would be relevant to unmanned planetary
exploration...

Pat Flannery wrote:


vaughn wrote:
To me, the LTA displays are some of the more fascinating artifacts at
the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola FL.


There's a good book on the history of the U.S. Navy's LTA program
entitled "Sky Ships" by William F. Althoff (Orion Books, 1990, ISBN
0-517-56904-3) which has a cutaway of the ZPG-3W in it showing the radar
antenna inside the gasbag. The scanning radar was actually mounted high
up in the gasbag, just slightly forward of the external top bump which
housed the height finding radar. You could climb up a tunnel from the
control car to a compartment just behind the radars... I assume to work
on there electronics while in flight.
You want to see a really odd airship, check out this thing I stumbled on
today, which I had never heard of befo
http://www.oldbeacon.com/beacon/airships/zmc-2.htm


Interesting how that site doesn't mention one major problem with
ZMC-2: air sickness. The crews complained of getting sick in rough air.
apparently the metal envelope couldn't flex enough to smooth the ride.

One thing I have never been able to find is diagrams or photographs
of the rivet machine designed for riveting the seams of the envelope.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Dan wrote:

Interesting how that site doesn't mention one major problem with
ZMC-2: air sickness. The crews complained of getting sick in rough
air. apparently the metal envelope couldn't flex enough to smooth the
ride.

One thing I have never been able to find is diagrams or photographs
of the rivet machine designed for riveting the seams of the envelope.

I've never seen any of those either, although there's a good description
of the principle it worked on he
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchi...0-%200492.html
I went over to the patent office to see if there's a patent for it (I
assume there is), but no luck finding it yet.

Pat

On Apr 27, 10:55*pm, Bluuuue Rajah Bluuuuue@Rajah. wrote:
Skunk Works to Build Radar Airship for DARPA
Graham Warwick 4/27/2009 4:42 PM CDT

http://snipurl.com/gwd6g*[www_aviationweek_com]

Who thought it would get this far? Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has won
a $100 million DARPA/USAF contract to demonstrate a massive radar
integrated into the structure of a unmanned airship. The ultimate
objective is to build a 6,000 square-meter active-array radar into a
solar-powered stratospheric airship that can stay aloft for a decade. As
a first step, the Integrated Sensor Is Structure (ISIS) program plans to
build and fly a subscale prototype with a 100 square-meter X-band radar
and 600 square-meter UHF band radar to prove the full-sized beast could
be manufactured and how it would perform. Northrop Grumman was the
losing bidder.

Because of the sheer size of the active electronically scanned array,
DARPA calcuates an operational system would be able to detect and track
small cruise missiles and UAVs up to 600km away, and dismounted soldiers
and camouflaged vehicles up to 300km. Raytheon will develop the AESAs
for the demonstrator. The airship would be more like a satellite than an
aircraft, operating entirely autonomously after launch. Lockheed's Akron
plant, home of the Goodyear Blimp, will help with design.

Never any public loot shortages for DARPA or DoD. Must have gotten
their investment training from our SEC approved Ponzi Madoff.

That $100M is just to cover their initial R&D. Figure on the package
deal costing us a cool billion, and then at least another $10M/year
for its operation.

~ BG

Pat Flannery wrote:


Dan wrote:

Interesting how that site doesn't mention one major problem with
ZMC-2: air sickness. The crews complained of getting sick in rough
air. apparently the metal envelope couldn't flex enough to smooth the
ride.

One thing I have never been able to find is diagrams or photographs
of the rivet machine designed for riveting the seams of the envelope.

I've never seen any of those either, although there's a good description
of the principle it worked on he
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchi...0-%200492.html
I went over to the patent office to see if there's a patent for it (I
assume there is), but no luck finding it yet.

Pat


That's quite an interior shot. It reminds me of an image I have of
the Macon being skinned with several men working on top of very tall
step ladders. It took some squinting to be able to see the men. That's
how big the airship was.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired