Improvements on Raytheon's Dirigible Over the Horizon Radar System Prototype

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Lance_Winslow]Lance Winslow
There are many great future military technologies on the horizon, some even just over the horizon in fact. One technology which has always intrigued me has been the use of lighter-than-air dirigibles for surveillance and early warning systems. Perhaps, my fascination began from stories about my grandfather and his work in the US Navy with their blimp program. Today, I noted that Northrop, Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed all have dirigible technology programs.
YouTube Video was posted on; October 11, 2011 by YouTube user "USAmilitarypower" titled; "Raytheon's Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor" - and it depicted a rather cool mini-blimp aerostat called J-LENS which is deployed in 120-hours, anywhere in the world and sits up at 10,000 feet AGL.
This is great technology and I'd like to add a tube through the center of the dirigible with a wind turbine generator inside to help with power to run the radar, plus, energy for keeping the compressor up, plus some steering, and morphing for higher winds. This lessens the need for a power cable, making the system safer, less radar signature, and save on fuel for remote locations, if you can do this, I'd like to recommend it.
In other words, using the Bernoulli principle to speed up the air, then a wind turbine system in the tube, so it could I produce enough energy to run the radar system, with perhaps a power plant to help steer the dirigible? This would lighten the load as the power cable wouldn't be needed. Think about it 10,000 feet of power cable weighs quite a bit.
Now there are many who do not have strong positive feelings for high-altitude dirigibles, and I definitely understand why. The winds up high are not always calm, and depending on the region, and jet-stream it is possible that such systems wouldn't work at all, thus, the use of UAVs instead. Using a wind turbine inside of a blimp perpetuates the drag challenging the ability of the blimp to maintain its altitude and putting the cable or tether at an extreme angle, meaning even more is needed, thus more weight too.
The critics on this are correct, however, I suppose the wind at 10,000 feet if it's not in a major jet-stream area is somewhat reliable within a range, and the air-pressure is much less, but I agree, "somewhat" isn't good enough and they have a terrible time with the CA, AZ/ Mexico border dirigibles for surveillance and they don't even go up that high in Yuma or Ft. Huachuca, AZ.
A streamlined flying wing type dirigible could perhaps fly a little, thus, less light-than-air gas would be needed. A morphable dirigible could counter-act for such challenges and end up working well. These are all just preliminary thoughts on the concept, and there are some kids with a start-up at MIT with a dirigible tunnel kite wind generation system testing prototypes now. Anyway, please consider all this.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Lance+Winslow#/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Future+Concepts&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3AFuture+Concepts]Future Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Improvements-on-Raytheons-Dirigible-Over-the-Horizon-Radar-System-Prototype&id=6643550] Improvements on Raytheon's Dirigible Over the Horizon Radar System Prototype