US Military Blimp Loose Over Pennsylvania, F-16s Scrambled

defenseone.com

23 points·spking··5 comments

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/harford/aberdeen-h...

Bad weather has caused problems for JLENS in the past. In 2010 a blimp was completely destroyed when it collided with another blimp at a facility in North Carolina.

Does anybody else find this whole situation absolutely hilarious? I mean, not because it's funny per-se, but just the sheer absurdity of the whole thing?

You'd hope they have a remotely controllable slow helium release valve. That way they can just wait for a safe area and start slowly lowering it.

The fact they let it get from 10K to 16K and are only "tracking it" might hint that they have no such procedure in place.

The thing is pretty dangerous because of the amount of cable it is dragging.

They do, they tried using it and it didn't work...

Oh. That's unfortunate. Do you have a better article than this one? I'd like more info on this, and this article is lacking a little.

Gizmodo article is actually decent: "While helium doesn’t appear to be a problem at the moment, deflation is. ABC27 reports: “Authorities said it is equipped with a device to slowly deflate it, but it apparently is not working.” Whoops. If you see the free-floating balloon on the loose, call 911. Do not attempt to engage."

http://gizmodo.com/theres-a-runaway-defense-department-blimp...

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