The USA’s Spearhead-class, expeditionary fast transports

When moving whole units, shipping is always the cheaper, higher-capacity option. Slow speed and port access are the big issues, but what if ship transit times could be cut sharply, and full-service ports weren’t necessary? After Australia led the way by using what amounted to fast car ferries for military operations, the US Army and Navy decided to give it a go. Both services leased Incat TSV/HSV wave-piercing catamaran ship designs, while the Marines’ charged ahead with very successful use of Austal’s Westpac Express high-speed catamaran. These Australian-designed ships all give commanders the ability to roll on a company with full gear and equipment (or roll on a full infantry battalion if used only as a troop transport), haul it intra-theater distances at 38 knots, then move their shallow draft safely into austere ports to roll them off.

Their successful use, and continued success on operations, attracted favorable comment and notice from all services. So favorable that the experiments have led to a $3+ billion program called the Joint High Speed Vessel. These designs may even have uses beyond simple ferrying and transport.

US Army Aerostat-based PTDS Provide IED Warning

$142 million to Lockheed Martin for additional PTDS. (June 8/10)

The US Army is using tethered aerostats with multi-mission sensors to provide long endurance intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and communications in support of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The aerostat-based Persistent Threat Detection System (PTDS) is one of the ISR tools the Army uses to detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs) buried along roadsides…

JLENS: Co-ordinating Cruise Missile Defense – And More

JLENS Concept

Experiences in Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrated that even conventional cruise missiles with limited reach could have disruptive tactical effects, in the hands of a determined enemy. Meanwhile, the proliferation of cruise missiles and associated components, combined with a falling technology curve for biological, chemical, or even nuclear agents, is creating longer-term hazards on a whole new scale. Intelligence agencies and analysts believe that the threat of U.S. cities coming under cruise missile attack from ships off the coast is real, and evolving.

Aerial sensors are the best defense against low-flying cruise missiles, because they offer far better detection and tracking range than ground-based systems. The bad news is that keeping planes in the air all the time is very expensive, and so are the aircraft themselves. As cruise missile defense becomes a more prominent political issue, the primary challenge becomes the development of a reliable, affordable, long-flying, look-down platform. One that can detect, track and identify incoming missiles, then support over-the-horizon engagements in a timely manner. The Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS) certainly looked like that system, but the Pentagon has decided to end it.

JLENS Ramps Up Hard: Raytheon wins $1.3B Contract

JLENS Concept
(click to view full, fixed)

Intelligence agencies and analysts believe that the threat of U.S. cities coming under cruise missile attack from ships off the coast is real, sophisticated and evolving. The proliferation of cruise missiles, combined with a falling technology curve for biological, chemical, or even nuclear agents, is creating longer-term hazards on a whole new scale. Meanwhile, the June 2005 issue of Air Defense Artillery Magazine notes that experiences in Operation Iraqi Freedom showed that even conventional cruise missiles had tactical uses in the hand of a determined enemy.

The primary challenge for theater and national cruise missile defense is the development of a reliable look-down platform to detect, track and identify incoming missiles and support the over-the-horizon engagements in a timely manner. Hence JLENS.

The USA’s RAID Program: Small Systems, Big Surveillance Time

TCOM 17M RAID Aerostat

The RAID program is a combination of cameras and surveillance equipment positioned on high towers and aerostats, in order to monitor a wide area around important locations and bases. The RAID concept began with a smaller TCOM 17M aerostat as the base platform, instead of the TCOM 71M JLENS aerostats used for cruise missile and air defense. Its sensors were also optimized for battlefield surveillance, rather than JLENS’ focus on powerful air defense radars. The result is a form of survivable and permanent surveillance over key areas that has been deployed to Afghanistan & Iraq.

“Aerostats” has actually become something of a misnomer, however – RAID can also be deployed as a tower system, and this “Eagle Eye/ GBOSS” deployment is turning out to be the preferred mode. Raytheon continues to receive contracts from the US Marine Corps and US Army for new towers, as well as maintenance of existing systems…

LEMV Airship Sold Back to Manufacturer for a Song, and Future Data

LEMV concept

The rise of modern terrorism, sharply increasing costs to recruit and equip professional soldiers, and issues of energy security, are forcing 2 imperatives on modern armies. Modern militaries need to be able to watch wide areas for very long periods of time. Not just minutes, or even hours any more, but days if necessary. The second imperative, beyond the need for that persistent, unblinking stare up high in the air, is the need to field aerial platforms whose operating costs won’t bankrupt the budget.

These pressures are forcing an eventual convergence toward very long endurance, low operating cost platforms. Many are lighter-than-air vehicles or hybrid airships, whose technologies have advanced to make them safe and militarily useful again. On the ground near military bases, Raytheon’s RAID program fielded aerostats, and then surveillance towers. Lockheed Martin has also fielded tethered aerostats: TARS along the USA’s southern border, and PTDS aerostats on the front lines. The same trend can be observed in places like Thailand and in Israel; and Israeli experience has led to export orders in Mexico and India. At a higher technical level, Raytheon’s large JLENS aerostats are set to play a major role in American aerial awareness and cruise missile defense, and a huge ground and air scanning ISIS radar is under development under a DARPA project, to pair with Lockheed Martin’s fully mobile High Altitude Airship.

The Army’s Long-Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) project fitted in between RAID and HAA/ISIS, in order to give that service mobile, affordable, very long term surveillance in uncontested airspace. Its technologies and flight data may eventually wind up playing a role in other projects. This would help the Army recoup some of its investment, as it sold its prototype back to its manufacturer in the fall of 2013, for the price of a luxury car.

Walrus/HULA Heavy-Lift Blimps Rise, Fall… Rise?

Latest updates[?]: Aeros begins flying its airship, with a former USAF AMC commander at the controls; Limited FAA certification; Commercial plans; Background & research links updated & upgraded.

Goo goo g’joob!
By John MacNeill

The Walrus heavy-transport blimp (“heavy” as in “1-2 million pounds”) was among a range of projects on the drawing board in the mid ’00s. It offered the potential for a faster and more versatile sealift substitute. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded phase 1 contracts, but things seemed to end in 2006. Yet the imperatives driving the need for Walrus, or even for a much smaller version of it, remain. Is the Walrus dead? And could it, or a Hybrid Ultra Large Aircraft (HULA) like it, rise again?

Recent presentations and initiatives in several US armed services, and some commercial ventures, indicate that it might.

Thailand’s Insurgency: The Blimp and I

Aria’s airship
(click to view larger)

In early 2009, Aria International, Inc. announced a contract from the Royal Thai Army to provide in-country surveillance and communications solutions and services, for an aggregate purchase price of $9.7 million. The RTA surveillance system consists of a manned airship with military-grade imaging and communications systems, an armored Command and Control vehicle, and upgrades to existing communications and facilities to receive real-time surveillance data.

Thailand has the questionable distinction of being saddled with the bloodiest Islamist insurgency most people have never heard of. The American export system that has hindered their order is well known around the world… but it looks like everything has been ironed out. Unfortunately, Thailand hasn’t been able to get much value out of its new asset.

• Thailand’s Airship Program [updated]
  
• Contracts & Key Events
  

KLASS of Kuwait: Aerostats Extend their Reach

TCOM 32M

In December 2011, TCOM, LP in Columbia, MD received a $10.4 million firm-fixed-price contract for the Kuwait Low Altitude Surveillance System aerostat’s contractor engineering technical support (CETS). While the aerostat itself could be handled by commercial sale protocols, CETS operation and maintenance of the KLASS aerostat is considered to be a Foreign Military Sale item, in pursuit of a “mission essential asset for this sensitive region of the world.” Work will be performed in Kuwait (90%); Columbia, MD (5%); and Elizabeth City, NC (5%), and is expected to be complete by December 2013. Kuwait directed its agents at US Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, VA to sole-source this buy (M67854-12-C-2404).

These kinds of tethered lighter-than-air craft come in a range of sizes, and aerostats have become a global trend. Their ability to carry sensors aloft for weeks at a time greatly improves radar and/or optical surveillance systems’ field of view at near-zero per-hour deployment costs. This makes them especially effective at protecting military bases or key national infrastructure, but they’ve also been deployed to provide coverage over cities, border patrol, and coastal surveillance. Larger aerostats, like the TCOM 71s used in the USA’s JLENS system, can offer the kind of coverage that normally requires high-end AWACS aircraft.

Flying LTTE Tigers, LET Terrorist Boats Help Spur Indian Aerostat Buys from Israel

Ripple effect

As countries recognize the need to watch their borders, and especially their coasts, they’re running up against the reality of high operating costs for aerial surveillance. They’re also turning to a logical way around that problem: aerostats. These tethered airships offer very low operating costs and near-constant deployment, carrying optical and radar surveillance gear to altitudes that give them wide-area coverage. Israel has joined the USA as a leading developer of these systems, and a leading exporter as well. One of its customers is India.

In 2007, the Tamil Tigers’ (LTTE), which was responsible for assassinating Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, attacked Sri Lankan military bases and oil facilities using an unusual weapon for guerrillas and terrorists: aircraft. The implications of those attacks were regional in scope, and in time, aerostats’ value would be driven home by another surprise, this time from Islamic LET(Lashkar-e-Taiba) terrorists operating from Pakistan. The gaps it revealed in India’s defenses, and the deployment of the existing Israeli aerostat systems to protect critical areas in the attack’s aftermath, strongly underlined the systems’ value. Now India’s Navy is now buying them, too, and additional purchases are expected.

• Flying Tigers, and Unease in India
  
• The Aerostat Solution
  
• Updates and Developments [updated]