Re: Battle blimps

At 5:09 PM +0900 4/17/02, Edward Lipsett wrote:
>Offhand, bcause it is a heck of a lot harder to hide, has a bigger
>cross-section, and moves slower. On the other hand, I am not a blimp
expert.

Cross section yes. RCS...no. They are not the same.

One could build a very low rcs blimp for not a heck of a lot of 
money. Remember, you aren't working with the same airframe stresses. 
Your areas of concern are

Gondola: easy to reduce rcs, its a box suspended from the bottom of 
the gas envelope.

Control surfaces: easy, they are large foam composites, heck build 
them EMF transparent.

Engines on the gondola: Shroud the props inside large fairings that 
have excellent RCS capabilities.

Gas envelope: easy, make it transparent.

Now the only question is can you build a radar emitter that doesn't 
radiate or reflect when it's not operating? Can you build phased 
array emitters that are stealthy?

-- 
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Ryan Gill			  rmgill@mindspring.com
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