Re: Slow planes was: Battle blimps

On Fri, 19 Apr 2002 11:08:19 -0600, "B Lin" <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:

> At 80,000-100,000 feet you could concieveably stand off from the
battle area
> by 20-30 miles and still have a pretty good view (maybe not in
mountainous
> areas, but still pretty good).

At 80,000 to 100,000 feet you run into some real problems with the gas
in the
gas bag expanding. So the gas bag is going to be pretty darn big. Look
how big
the gas bag for the "around-the-world" balloons were. It has to be big
to go
up to those high altitudes. That was for a pressurized sphere with a
couple of
guys in it. Imagine how big the bag is going to be for a zeppelin or
blimp
carrying enough weaponry to be useful.

It would be interesting to see how well the "around the world" balloons
were
picked up on radar. Of course, they had a good reason to be picked up
and were
not trying to be stealthy. You could go for a stealth balloon, but I
think
they would still be easy to spot visually.

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, 
unimaginable mortician was revealed!"