Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle – The Pentagon wants to deploy a hybrid airship built by Lockheed Martin, pictured below, high above Afghanistan by 2011.

Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle

Dubbed the LEMV (for Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle), the hybrid airship is “optionally manned” and can stay aloft at 20,000 feet for up to 21 days at a time, while also carrying a payload of up to 2,500 pounds.

The massive dirigible is twice the size of Lockheed’s working prototype, the Lockheed P-791 (seen in the test flight video below), which has already flown six times.

Aviation Week reports that the US Army Space and Missile Defence Command is highly interested in using the LEMV as a spyship over Afghanistan, issuing a request for LEMV proposals in April 2009 and now awarding a contract.

The LEMV “hybrid” airship design means it is not supported entirely by the buoyancy of their lifting gas like a conventional sky-ship.

Rather, 80% of their weight is supported by their sealed gas cells and the remaining 20% by aerodynamic lift when the airship is underway.

To move about on the ground, the missing 20% lift is generated by a hovercraft-style aircushion system which allows the craft to be taxied about.

The hovercraft aircushion can also be switched into reverse, allowing the ship to suck itself down firmly in place, thus avoiding the need for mooring masts and large ground-handling teams.

In order to lift off before gathering speed, such a ship uses vertical thrust from its swivelling propulsors driven by powerful turbodiesels.

Once in the air at cruising speed, the fuel-hungry engines are shut down and the props are driven electrically by a central generator.

LEMV Prototype Video:

And that’s the latest news on the proposed Afghanistan deployment of the LEMV or Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle.

Tags: afghanistan, hybrid airship, lemv, long endurance multi intelligence vehicle

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