The $211 million Blue Devil 2 airship, built for the Air Force by the tiny, Virginia-based company Mav6, is slated for dismantling and storage, bringing to an ignominious end a two-year saga of technological ambition, bureaucratic waffling and vicious politicking.
The Air Force no longer wants Blue Devil 2 or anything like it, a reversal from its official position just two years ago on a programme that a former Pentagon chief said was “urgently needed.” Now tensions between the Air Force and Mav6 are bad enough that a company employee had to sneak me into the hangar past a pair of Air Force officers just to see the blimp.
There’s a slim chance the story’s not over. The Pentagon — particularly, the Army and Navy — is still keen to build next-gen “hybrid” airships, which combine lighter-than-air buoyancy with thrust from propellers. Mav6 is talking to the Navy about picking up Blue Devil 2 from the Air Force. The company should have the thumbs-up or -down from the sailing branch soon, though we’re told it could be weeks before the Navy’s decision is made public. If the Navy passes, an alternative model for overhead military surveillance will deflate without ever taking off.
Mav6, whose key executives include a respected retired Air Force general and a former Northrop Grumman program manager, once envisioned building a fleet of Blue Devil 2 airships to fill an important gap in U.S. surveillance capabilities. Satellites provide a distant, intermittent, wide view from above the world’s battlefields. Spy planes and pilotless drones gather more fine-grain data during missions lasting hours at a time. But there’s nothing in between — no robotic system that can fly, say, a week or two at high altitudes, unblinkingly gazing at vast swaths of territory with a variety of sensors.
Click here to read the full story.
Photo Credit: David Axe
Source: Wired: Danger Zone