Sunday, May 2, 2010

Praxis: Once again, old technology made new.

Shades of Absolved.

2 comments:

Bad Cyborg said...

Reminds me of the use of spotters in balloons during the War of Northern Aggression.

Wonder why the aerostats cannot remain aloft longer than a month? If it's a matter of battery power or such, it'd seem they could put solar cells on top of the blimps.

Nice to know SOMEbody's thinkin' out of the box.

pdxr13 said...

Tethered? Why not put lighter-than-air craft under the same remote control and GPS-based autopilot navigation that even arm-launched aircraft use?

I bet images from balloons and zeppelins are super-good. There's way less vibration and speed-above-ground to mess up exposures, and combined optical / digital anti-shake is fantastic, even in $500 consumer cameras.

Don't forget comm advantage of a balloon. Line-of-sight on a flat area to a balloon at 5000 feet is very far. A zeppelin might be an automated launching platform for small disposable aircraft packing a few pounds of items like batteries or loaded magazines for isolated troops. The same kind of cheap disposable aircraft could guide to a beacon where a shaped-charge could be landed and detonated.

There are no obsolete weapons.

Cheers.