No! Nooooo! Say it ain’t so, Darpa! The Walrus program — the fringe-science agency’s awesomely, almost insanely, ambitious plan to build an aircraft carrier-sized blimp — is over, Defense Technology International discovers.
Congress had always been skeptical about the idea of an airship that could schlep 500-1000 tons halfway around the world. (After all, the Pentagon’s current go-to airborne hauler, the C-130 Hercules cargo plane, holds about 22 tons.) But blimp-lovers had pushed the “tri-phibian” (air, land, sea) Walrus as a way to make American forces less reliant on deep-water ports, foreign bases, and billion-dollar airports to wage war.
But it wasn’t meant to be. Darpa took away the fiscal year 2006 funding for the Walrus. And the agency’s 2007 budget request calls for “termination of the Walrus effort.”
Now, the Army’s Surface Deployment and Distribution Command had its own plans for a heavy-hauling airship, too. I’m checking to see if they’re still interested. Keep your fingers crossed.
UPDATE 9:46 AM: Don’t get too bummed, blimp fans. Darpa’s plan for an all-seeing airship that tracks an entire battlefield at once is still intact.
Dammit Mannn!!!
I was really looking forward to a fly over of 50 or so of these monsters fully loaded being deployed darkening the sky as they went overhead.
Talk about a Battleship deplomacy potential.
You know…this has been tried before. The Germans tried to resupply their little force in East Africa in 1916 with a dirigible. They made it as far as the Sudan before they were mysteriously called back. The airship was not intended to return and they had plans to cannibalize it for material for tents and uniforms. It had, as I recall, about fifteen or twenty tons of ammunition on board.
As it turned out, it probably wouldn’t have made much difference. The Germans kept on fighting in what is now Tanzania right up to the end of the war.
The Bastards,
Dont they know that if you turn your back to the blimps, you turn your back to the future! Even so, they’ve probably just found a better idea… like converting sunken japanese battleships for space travel.
yeah yeah yeah…it’s probably already built and functional, so they’re just terminating the research/testing/building phase of the project. watch that money turn up in another section of the 2008 budget. lol…
The world needs airships on the horizon. It’s the right thing to do. Perhaps they’ll appear as an interim solution between Airbus’ cruise liner and the first generation exoatmospheric pax haulers. They’d be useful in disaster response and bulk cargo, as well.
They need the funds for some Iraq-related thing, like the JIN or that non-lethal PHASR, etc.
Walrus is cancelled because DARPA and largest potential contractor have been unable to see beyond “envelope” “fabric” “laminate” “inflate” and a host of other ARCHAIC airship/blimp technologies.
Plus, perhaps after all, they finally recognise that their vaunted “hybrid” airship still needs a runway because it is not a true Lighter-than-Air craft. As such, it is no more than a larger form of airplane, and yes, any one of a dozen airplanes are already sufficient.
Airships will only enter use when the world wakes up to totaly rigid SHELLED craft that are truely Lighter-than-Air, are solar powered, and eliminate historic ground handling through AMPHIBIOUS design.
Proper airship development SHOULD be continued. Best work is being done by (my competitor!) at Aeros Worldwide, (although my turtle is better)
Coming fuel prices will force the issue, belatedly.
A recent Military.com article talked about the USAF changing its mind about wanting C-27 “Baby Hercs” or C-295s because the Hercules couldn’t land on enough runways in Third World backwaters and it was affecting combat operations. They hoped smaller aircraft that could use these shorter runways might help.
But the 2008 technical demonstration version of the Walrus was supposed to haul 30 tons. Which means that funding it could give the USAF an answer that could use those shorter runways and haul more than the C-130s, thus potentially solving the problem.
Even if the 500-ton version later proved impossible, the value of a successful demo craft alone would appear to justify the investment level of a DARPA project. Now throw in DID’s recent coverage of the rising cost of fuel and the concern in the DoD.
I truly do not understand this decision.
No, DoD and the military are against heavy lifting blimps or anything else that will get the job done because THEY DO NOT WANT TO FIGHT!
Read Dr. Norman Dixon’s book on the Psychology of Military Incompetence for details.
Voluntary militaries are filled with people full of anxieties about themselves and life let alone war. They want BS gear like road-bound Stryker trucks filled with “mother may I?” electronic gadgets because they are all hoping mother will say “don’t”. Push-buttoning firepower is an ideal out for the narcissistic egomaniacs ordering around the weak economic co-dependants comprising 99% of our military. Military force is more than just blowing things up, but most Americans are fooled into thinking the current idiots are doing war well despite the obvious failures in Iraq and Afghanistan to secure the countryside and round up sub-national rebels.
If America wants itself defended its high time we take back control over both Congress, DoD and our military and fill the ranks with warriors who are genuinely interested in military success and folks who simply want to get the job done not fill some kind of psychic void in their life. Anything less than this and be prepared for a nuclear 9/11 attack in our lifetime.
This decision truly baffles me.
For a small amount of money (relatively speaking) DoD could validate (or not) a huge cost savings for heavy lift.
It almost makes you believe that the DoD R&D system is politicized and rigged for the big contractors.
Almost.
“and yes, any one of a dozen airplanes are already sufficient.”
How so? No existing airplanes can even come close to a 500 ton lifting capacity. One of the biggest obstacles to rapid deployment of our military is that the M1 Abrams weighs so much that even our largest aircraft can only carry a single tank. If this Walrus were made to work as intended, it could carry 7 such tanks. Even with the vehicle flying more slowly than a C-5 Galaxy, that would still allow for far more rapid deployment of armored units (which regardless of Rumsfeld’s inane “Transformation” pipedream remain essential to winning against any remotely formidable enemy) than is currently possible.