BLIMPS FOR MARINES IN IRAQ

We’re all huge — huge! — fans of blimps here at Defense Tech HQ. So when the word came down from Defense Daily that the Marines are start­ing to use aerostats as com­mu­ni­ca­tions relays in Iraq, it brought a cho­rus of huz­zahs in the news­room.
The blimps, called the Marine Airborne Re-​​Transmission Systems (MARTS), will receive sig­nals through a fiber-​​optic tether. Then, the air­ships will trans­mit mes­sages up to 100 miles away, via UHF and VHF fre­quen­cies. Troops on the ground, as well as pilots in the air, will be able to com­mu­ni­cate through the blimps.
One air­ship, first tested in February, is being deployed to Iraq right now (exactly where, the Corps won’t say). A sec­ond is being read­ied. The Marines are scroung­ing up $14 mil­lion to buy four more. It may sound like a lot, but it’s cheaper than build­ing radio tow­ers — and hav­ing Marines pro­tect those tow­ers.
A MARTS blimp “can run for two weeks before it would need refu­el­ing, and can remain afloat in winds up to 50 mph,” accord­ing to DD. With a com­bi­na­tion kevlar/​mylar skin, the aero­stat can even “han­dle small arms fire… function[ing] with a 4-​​inch diam­e­ter hole.“
MARTS was made by Columbia, Maryland’s TCOM LP, which built some of the bor­der patrol blimps that are now watch­ing over south­ern Arizona and the Gulf of Mexico. And the Army already has a pair of aerostats in Iraq, look­ing out for insur­gents. So it’s only nat­ural that “the Marine Corps is look­ing at putting sur­veil­lance equip­ment on future gen­er­a­tions of the blimp,” says DD. “It would be just a mat­ter of adding another box to include infrared radar.”

April 14th, 2005 | Planes, Copters, Blimps | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.