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http://www.7days.ae/storydetails.php?id ... r%20desert

I say its this thing - dubai-politics-talk/air-force-enlists-super-blimp-for-blue-devil-surveillance-t45052.html



Guesses ?

Makes sense, Jebel Ali is not far from Makthoum Airport or coalition AFB

Ooh no! here we go again.

Looks like a picture of a painting on a sheet of glass taken against a sky backdrop on a cloudy day to me?

Yes Dillion there is no military AFB here or the possibilty that an Air ship could be stationed or undergoing final prep there or such an airship which is supposed to be in the combat zone in 2011 being brought out to such an AFB which is know to be used for military operations for the ongoing wars.

FAIL

I think i have seen this thing on the ground. Not quite sure of exactly where it is based, but i passed it whilst heading east off the main Dubai-Ad highway, before the DXB/AD border. I remember thinking WTF is a blimp doing here?

If it's supposed to be secret, they've built the base a bit too near the road, and the wall's aren't high enough.

-- Sun Feb 06, 2011 3:53 pm --

No idea how to upload a picture, but if you go to Google earth, i think the place i am thinking of is at the coordinates 24 deg 50' 14.01" N / 55 deg 02' 23.14" E.

You can see the very tall hangar they probably keep it in.

It's just a bit futher down the road from the end of Emirates road, away from the main highway twoards the desert...

The Minhad AFB is off the Umm al Nahad interchange on Al Ain highway but only 20k from ghantoot the spot your describing. Makthoum Airport is even closer.

Anyways could be somekind of other airship i,e commercial, weather ? etc etc aswell.

Tethered blimps are used for a wide variety of data gathering and surveillance operations. I have seen this one in the distance and it is, in comparison to some used by the US Coast Guard and the DEA, very small and therefore only carrying a relatively low powered cargo package.

This could be a low level radar array or an aerial camera. The US Coastguard operate a series of 'Sentinel' tethered blimps in the Caribbean that allow them to see small fast moving boats in an attempt to halt the flow of drugs from South America. These are large aircraft and tethered to ships with a large winch system and operate at heights up to 14,000 feet.

Helium, the lifting gas used in these aircraft, has the ability to raise 0.84kgs per cubic metre of gas at 23 degrees Celsius. Therefore to carry a large or complex payload, the blimp needs to be large. This one is tethered in the region of Minhad military airfield and therefore I would hazard a guess that it is a low level radar sensor, possibly for helicopter guidance operations as the UAE has recently taken delivery of a number of the next generation Apache attack helicopters.

Whether or not they have anyone qualified to fly them is another question!



Knight

Oh didn't know you were tin foiler like us too DK

Ahh - but surely the question remains .....

is it a Zionist blimp or a Jihadist, Islamic supremacist blimp? We should be told..

If it were filled with hot air, then it could be either!

Methinks its a 'I have a large defense budget but nothing really to spend it on but shiny toys' blimp...



Knight