Department of Old Ideas Revisited: Airship Aircraft - er- Drone Carriers?

Seems like every now and then the "airship" (read as "blimp" or "dirigible") idea gets dusted off and someone proposes a great new use for them - as reported in this Aviation Week article proposing their use as "drone carriers" - Airship Carriers Could Extend Smaller UAS Capabilities :

The capability of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) continues to increase, as payloads become even smaller yet more powerful. But these aircraft have one disadvantage—range. “With the ranges we are looking at in the Pacific Theater, how do we get our small UAS to the fight?” asked DARPA Deputy Director Steve Walker at a recent conference in Washington.

DARPA’s answer is its Gremlins program, which seeks to develop a means of using existing large aircraft, transports or bombers, to launch and recover swarms of small UAS that would then cooperate to perform missions in contested airspace.

Another concept, presented by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) and ArcXeon at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aviation 2016 conference in Washington in June, is the AirStation, an airship that acts as an airborne carrier for UAS. In addition to military missions, the developers say the concept could support commercial package delivery operations.

I've blogged about the "Gremlin" program before at Gremlins? Really? Retrievable and Reuseable UAVs to Add to Air Mission Packages

The comments to the article are very much worth reading.

The above-referenced conference presentation, "Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) “AirStation” - Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Carrier Concept," is here.

I think we've seen this movie before:


Some ideas just never seem to get old - planes carrying planes:

Friday Fun Films: Lighter than Air

Blimps. It takes a little while to get to them in the first film . . .



Talk about herding cats -

Fighting Pirates with Airships

Ignore the Army markings, an LEMV (Northrup Grumman picture)

Royal Navy looking into bringing back an old tool as reported in 21st century airships may join Navy fleet:

Scientists from the defence company Northrop Grumman have given briefings to the Navy on the latest airship that is about to enter military service.
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Commanders are also considering using it as a counter piracy vessel as the LEMV can lower up to 150 commandos along with their fast inflatable boats.

Travelling at over 80 knots the airship is almost three times faster than ships and the Navy’s version can travel for several days without refuelling its four gas turbine engines.

The Royal Navy is not, and should not be, the only Navy looking into this tool for the counter-pirate mission which would seem well suited to this type of aircraft. I have some more thoughts in a draft post I hope to have up tonight, schedule permitting.