RE: Slow planes was: Battle blimps

Hi Beth,

>OK dumb question time. Seeings as we can make cockpits (and thus
gondolas)
>pressurised wouldn't they still have this ability or does the gas
pressure
>thing become too much of a problem at really high altitudes?
>

It's not dumb if you really don't know (and dumb is in the eye of the
beholder, anyway...)

Short answer, yes.  You could make a pressurized cockpit for super high
altitude.  The space shuttle, for example, has a pressurized cockpit for
it's entire flight (though the crew does use helmeted suits, IIRC, for
takeoff).

Problem - the higher you want to go, the more expensive and difficult it
is
to produce good pressurization.  And it's expensive.

But certainly very doable.

>So you could (may be) imagine a situation where they sit WAY up. Lase
the
>targets for themselves (if satellites can identify spots, I'd say a
blimp
>could use the same tech) and then just drop their bomb load
methodically (a
>load potentially much larger than that of a bomber given the weights
they
>can carry). They don't have to worry about scooting back to base so
often or
>so fast as they can just sit up there.

If you made the thing big enough, it could stay "on station" for weeks,
probably.  Like a ship.

>
>On a recon footing you could take the step further and say with the
remote
>guidance tech used in that pilotless plane they could stay up there a
LONG
>time just watching. Then again satellite coverage may make that a bit
>redundant.

Not at all.  Satellite coverage from a single satellite over any given
area
is very short duration (assuming low altitude recce satellites).  This
type
of airship with high-altitude capability could stay over a given point
for
a *long* time.

People have discussed doing this sort of thing with both
very-long-duration
pilotless (and piloted) airplanes, and airships, to use them as
communication relays over large urban areas.  Just like a satellite,
only
much more "local".  You would need a small fleet of them, so that when
one
needs to come in to refuel or whatever the area is still covered.  In a
military context, you could use them for reconnaissance, command and
control, communications relay, AEW, and even for your long duration
precision bombing idea.  

...Just don't do it over an area where the opposition has a chance of
shooting at them...

But if you were on station at 80,000 - 100,000 feet, the other guys need
some pretty specialized equipment to get to you.  Good high-altitude
capable combat aircraft, high-altitude missiles, etc.  And if you use
passive and active stealth systems on the airship, it would be very hard
to
get to.  Not for someone with good modern tech., but over someplace like
Afghanistan, for example, it could be *really* useful.

-Adrian

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Adrian Johnson