High-altitude Airship Destroyed after Aborted Demo Flight | Aviation International News

High-altitude Airship Destroyed after Aborted Demo Flight

The flight of the Lockheed Martin high-altitude long endurance-demonstrator (HALE-D) airship ended after less than three hours last week in a forced landin

The HALE-D airship lifts off from Akron at dawn on July 27. The airship was unable to reach its goal altitude of 60,000 feet and its flight was cut short.

By Chris Pocock • Defense Correspondent

August 8, 2011

The flight of the Lockheed Martin high-altitude long endurance-demonstrator (HALE-D) airship ended after less than three hours last week in a forced landing. Two days later, much of it was destroyed by a ground fire during recovery operations. The HALE-D was the first of three lighter-than-air vehicles due to fly this year with Pentagon funding, as the U.S. explores new means of providing persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and communications coverage over areas of conflict.

Lockheed Martin said that the remotely controlled HALE-D was launched successfully from the company’s Akron, Ohio, facility on July 27. But “a technical anomaly” prevented the airship reaching 60,000 feet as planned. It had ascended to 32,000 feet when the flight was cut short.

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