High-Altitude Surveillance Blimps

It’s easy to understand how a high-altitude surveillance blimp could be helpful for military use. But what happens when you bring the same technology to the civilian world? Scott and Ben discuss the pros and cons of these eyes in the sky.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
Car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to Car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. We are
joined as always today by our super producer Dylan Facan,
and we'll give him a nickname towards the end. We'd

(00:22):
also like to introduce our new super producer, Tristan McNeil.
Tristan shift in, Tristan, shift in Tristan. That right, you know,
we'll see. But it doesn't really flow with today's topic.
It doesn't really flow with today's topic. It just sort
of floats out there in the either, you know, unsurveilled
by us. But uh but watching what am I doing

(00:46):
with this terrible segue? What terrible? That was really bad, Scott. So,
so I'm introducing an idea that we've talked about a
little bit in the past but never really drilled into,
and that is the concept of surveillance s blimps. Yeah. Now,
we've had a couple of episodes in the past that
have dealt with some related topics. I suppose if you

(01:06):
want to look back at Car Stuff episodes from uh
well going back six years now, so in August of
two thousand eleven, we had the Rise and Fall of Airships,
which we went pretty in depth into what they're all about,
you know, and I think in that case, it was
more toward um passengers, you know, more toward transportation. Sure
it was a means of transit, and I think I'm

(01:27):
sure we touched on military applications as well. I haven't
listened to that whole episode again recently, so you have to,
you know, don't beat me up too bad on that
one if it's not exactly that. But we also had
another one that was called, um, this one is tan
generally related. I guess surveillance vehicles. Remember that, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that was back in April of so that's relatively recently,
just a little bit more than a year ago. And

(01:49):
that one I like that one a lot. We got
a lot of response from the surveillance vehicles episode because, um,
a lot of people were surprising number of people that's
kind of their day job and when they into us.
So maybe they're in a car right now operating a
surveillance what do you call that a steak out right?
Maybe they're in a stake out right now listening to
this podcast, not watching what's going on around them, but

(02:12):
terrible movie. But we also talked about I just want
to put in a side note here because this was
by far my my favorite part of those past episodes.
We also talked about the uss Akron and the making
which are these If you haven't heard the episode, um,
I think do we do this in Rise and Fall
of Airship? Maybe? Um? There? These they're these blimps that

(02:33):
are Mother's ships and they carry smaller planes or past
tense they carried smaller plane. Just to give you a
sense of scale, because I just looked this up maybe
twenty minutes ago before we walked in here. Alright, so
so it's in a note here. Okay, here it is
a Boeing seven forty seven is about two hundred and
thirty two ft long. Now we all know the Boeing
seven forty seven. It's a giant plane, the double decker plane. Huge.

(02:55):
When you see it at the airport, even among other planes,
you think, man, that's a big plane. So two thirty
two ft long, the uss Akron was seven hundred and
eighty five ft long. That's incredible. That's more than three
times throughout three times the length three and a half
or something like. It carried these things called sparrow hawks,
and sparrow hawks were these small biplane looking fighter craft

(03:16):
but when we say small, we mean tiny, and the
pilots would unhook from a from literally a hook hanging
off the bottom of the airship. This looks so scary
when it had because there's a film of this happening,
and it's scary. It's scary film. But but you should
check it out for sure, you know, we should point
out that this isn't like the birth of of surveillance,

(03:37):
of of blimpser zeppelins used in surveillance, though it goes
back to the Civil War. Yes, yeah, this is a
little known part of Civil War history is the use
of balloons for reconnaissance. Check me if I'm wrong, man,
Is that is that the first application of well military
application that you've heard of? Or were their previous versions
of it? I'm I'm unaware of any thing before the

(04:00):
Civil War. It's a little bit murky because after a
certain point that that technology, right, the the idea of
creating a balloon that can carry a person or a thing, Uh,
that technology is pretty old and we can figure out
parts of We can figure out places in time and

(04:21):
space where someone came up with the idea, but it's
a little bit difficult to conclusively say someone came up
with it first. Well, I didn't mean to put you
on the spot at all, I mean by any means.
But the first real military application that I could come
up with was the Civil War and something called the
UM the Union Army Balloon Corps, and they had seven balloons.
I think they used six of them eventually, but strictly reconnaissance.

(04:42):
And it's strange to think about this, but this is
more like a traditional hot air balloon shape I suppose,
made of often made of silk. I think there were
other materials that were used as well. UM primarily or
originally just from the Union Army, and then later the
Confederate Army had to kind of, you know, counteract this
with with their own balloon or but it didn't really
go so well. They had some real problems with their

(05:03):
balloon balloon applications. I guess maybe the way they use them.
It's strange to think though, that you could just float
in this now was a tethered balloon. Typically there was
a free free flight version of this, and there's also
a tether balloon version of this where you know, they
could just reel it back in. But it's strange to
think that they were unreachable by you know, other other um,

(05:24):
I guess by the munitions that were used by the
other side, but it's strange. So the way that they would, uh,
the only way they could really do this was to
dig a trench behind a cannon and angle it up
in order to hopefully get the right trajectory to hit
this balloon. But it was going to appear and then
disappear and then reappear somewhere else. So there's no way
to really consistently set up for you know, taking down

(05:46):
this reconnaissance balloon. And that's what it was primarily used for,
is reconnaissance. And I think there was a later version
that would allow them to have a heavier, bigger balloon.
But it allowed them to take a telegraph machine up,
you know, so they could send down morse code what
they were seeing on the battlefield, because prior to that,
they were using flags as kind of like a system
of semiphorces and that's what it's called and uh, and

(06:08):
they would you know, send down the message of you know,
what they're seeing on the battlefield, and uh, you know,
that's not a great way to do it, but it's
the best that they had at the time, and it's
still better than people on the ground attempting to figure
stuff out. Well, yeah, because you're getting this incredible vantage
point that you know no one on your side or
the the opposing side at the time had, And you

(06:28):
can see some amazing photos of these these uh um uh,
these balloons, I guess you call them the uh what
what were the name of them? Um? Oh, there's a
certain name for it. I think one was Intrepid that
had written on the side of it. That's the most
famous one I think that you see. It was the guy,
the guy that created this. I think his name is
Low and that was his favorite balloon to use. So uh,

(06:49):
that's often the one you'll see in the Civil War photos.
So what you'll probably hear about and I know I
Matrix dodge the question about the first balloons stuff, Um
what what you'll probably to hear this stuff traced back
to would be France in three. However, we don't have
to spend much time on this because there's a we
have a different show. Stuff they don't want you to know.

(07:11):
That's about these sorts of things. However, there are competing
theories about uh independent inventors independently creating hot air balloon
technology in other parts of the world. One of the
most controversial theories we heard regarding this pertains to the
Nasca lines, which are in the in the southern hemisphere,

(07:32):
right south America. He's gigantic uh glyphs or or rough
shapes made out of stone and and these things are
thousands and thousands of feet um. They're huge. On the ground.
It doesn't appear that they are actually a thing except
for you know, a couple of weird lines of stones. However, Scott,

(07:54):
if someone were to be in a hot air balloon,
then they would be easily able to say, oh, that's
a person, that's a you know, a deer. And so
one of the controversial third theories is that someone in
that in that area, in that civilization built hot air

(08:15):
balloon technology, because how else would they have that vantage
point to design such a thing, right, And that's the
whole point is that you have to be able to
see it in in order to build it like that without
having that understanding from the ground that you know, and
from the ground again it looks like nothing. Yeah, And
of course, the other the other theory is, of course
extraterrestrials or some sort of but that's a different show.
But what if it's just natural? Then what if it's

(08:36):
like like when you look at the clouds and it's
like that one looks like a clown or an ice
cream cone or money or something like that. Maybe maybe,
But so we trace the The typical explanation you'll see
is that we trace this kind of this kind of
technology back to Paris in sevent three, and then if

(08:57):
we want to bring this forward into a couple of
other bigger I don't know, I want to say bigger wars,
maybe a bit other wars World War One, world War two.
Of course they were used during those and I think
we I do think we touched on those in our
airship episode. But they became more and more sophisticated as
time went on. They became to, uh, you know, gradually
morph into what we know is like the Zeppelin shape,
the blimp shape, right, the thermal airship. The big difference

(09:20):
between a typical hot air balloons such as the kind
used in the Civil War and a goodyear blimp that
you might see outside of sports games and such is
that a thermal airship is steerable, it is not at
the mercy of errant winds. Yeah, So the big thing
that drove this change would be uh propulsion and the

(09:41):
ability to steer the thing. So they had a way
to then you know, drive it through the air, and
way to control the height, you know, the altitude. So
they became much more advanced, and they also began to
carry um more and more sophisticated equipment as well as
more and more well actually for the first time, they
began to carry um, you know, means of well the

(10:01):
armament they can they carried um uh, well, ammunitions, the ammunitions, right,
they could carry bombs. Yeah, we already talked about I
feel like I already spoiled the coolest part. We already
talked about deploying these tiny planes. Yeah, but you know what,
it's maybe the coolest part about those old time ones, right,
And that is interesting. And you know the thing about

(10:22):
the acron though, is that it's eventually crashed. It It
never made it to World War two, so it never
saw service in World War two obviously, and there was
a pretty significant loss of life. I mean I think
it was like seventy three or seventy six crew members
that were lost off the coast of New Jersey. I
think it was back in nineteen thirty three. It was
prior to World War Two, and only three survivors. Yeah,
and just there's a pretty detailed account of you know,

(10:45):
what happened that even I think it was sent out
in a thunderstorm and there was some kind of uh,
there's some problems there, of course, but anyways, it never
made it to that, but there's still some fantastic film
of that thing operating, and just the man that da
flying a plane so close to it and trying to
latch a hook underneath and then climbing on a ladder
up into a zeppelin. It's amazing. We should also talk about,

(11:09):
without taking too much from our episode on the rise
and fall of airships, we do, of course need to
mention that airships, which were posed at one point to
become due to economy of scale and affordable and common
mode of international transport, UH, because of several disasters that
occurred and because of the potential for future disasters, airships

(11:34):
fell sharply out of favor in across the planet. And
of course we have to mention the Hyndeberg and the
volatile gas that was used in that, of course, hydrogen,
which is no longer the case or no longer necessary
for these two, you know, to use that. It's just
not the way that they do it. They realize the
danger in that, and so again we covered this in
that one. But I've still been to this day, I

(11:55):
will still stumble across some stories that you know, Boeing
is experienced experimenting with UM airships as a form of transportation,
like intercontinental form of transportation, and I just wonder, I wonder,
is that is that ever gonna happen in our lifetime?
We ever gonna see UM, you know, Boeing creating airships
that people are gonna want to get into that you know,
little gondola. I'm sure it'll be very luxurious, and it'll

(12:17):
be you know, everything that you know, the best jets
are now only slower, right and noticeably and and just enormous.
I mean, these things are gonna be gigantic. If you
look at the photos of you know, what they have,
the concepts maybe the ones that they've proposed, they're huge. Well,
the the real problem here is not engineering, and it's

(12:39):
not capacity. The problem is everyone knows is security. So
these things are floating targets. No one has up to
this point, no one has invented a technology that will
allow the the envelope, essentially the thing that holds the gas.
No one has invented something that will allow that envelope

(13:02):
to work the way an envelope needs to work, but
then also be puncture resistant enough to withstand let's say,
a surface to air missile or something which is which
is terrible to talk about, but that's the reason, that's
the reason why you don't normally see airships over at
Hartsfield Airport air I guess this would also kind of

(13:25):
take the place of maybe like a train, you know,
like a scenic train ride or um, you know, maybe
something like um, what's another slow relatively slow, but you
get to see you know, bus bus I guess you
get to see a lot of the country, have donkey trip,
like if you were writing a donkey people do that
pack meal. But so we we give you all this

(13:47):
preface because, as it turns out, the death of the
airship has been somewhat exaggerated, and for several years a
new kind of airship has been on the rise. But quietly,
very very quietly, and we're going to dive into that

(14:08):
directly after a word from our sponsor, and we're back
and have been. You kind of teased us here with
you know, there's been this quiet operation of of a
new sort of airship. Now, what what can we experor?

(14:29):
What have what have we been missing over the last
few years. So if you haven't been paying attention to
the headlines, that is, there were some headlines there, there
were some famous headlines. Well, there's one system that's come
out called the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated
Netted Sensor System or j LENS kind of rolls off

(14:51):
the tongue, Yeah, it's poetry simple. I like j LENS
better and uh, you know the street name would be
spy balloon. So this is this is just like in
the Civil War. This this system is tethered and it's
designed to track boats, ground vehicles, cruise, missiles, other aircraft, uh,

(15:12):
et cetera. As four primary components. It's got two areas
stats that are tethered right that, It's got army armored
mooring stations, radars, and a processing station designed to communicate
with these other warfare systems. So this this would be

(15:33):
not an offensive weapon. This is able to see a
lot and then communicate with another system. And this is
happening at a place called the Aberdeen Improving Ground, which
is northeast of Baltimore, and it was built by defense
contractor Raytheon And again you mentioned some of the stats
of this thing, but it can fly up to ten
tho feet up in the air, so it's a it's

(15:54):
a significant height. And at that height, the radar system
that it carries is able to see for three hundred
and forty miles in any direction, which is that's pretty significant.
That's a that's a decent coverage. And if you were
you can imagine if you were to space these appropriately,
you'd be able to have some excellent coverage across nationwide
if you wanted to. Really right, and this uh, this

(16:15):
program dates back to the mid sixties, but it also
has is Okay, look, here's the thing about the Defense Department.
I know, um, ladies and gentlemen, we know that a
lot of you do work uh in defense or in
military related fields, so you probably know more about this
we do. The thing is, when you're developing these kind

(16:35):
of systems, there's definite um rate of attrition. Not all
of these are gonna work, you know, into into every
defense project, a little rain must fall. So these have
these have functioned well, but not without incident. And the
incident the headline that you're referring to, Scott, is one

(16:56):
of the first times that a lot of people in
the US learned that blimps were still around. Yeah, because
it was just kind of there on the base doing
what it does in a quiet manner, right, I mean,
unless you're in the program, you didn't really know what
was happening. I mean, you probably saw this thing if
you were you know, local, if you were right in
the Baltimore area. I thought it was like everybody who
thinks the blimps thinks of the Good Year blimp, at
least here in the U of course. Yeah, and you

(17:18):
know what, honestly, the shape is not that far off
from that. I mean, it's a it's a caricaturized version
of it. It's a great, big, huge white blimp that
um it looks again cartoonish maybe in the way it's
I mean, even the Finns look like they're they're inflated. There.
It's a strange looking thing. Almost like what do you
call it, like a big guppy maybe something like that.
That that's the design. It's it's bigger at the front end.

(17:39):
The gondola looks like it's really not a gondala. It's
more you know, that's where the stuff is held, you know,
the electronics and things. But um, what you're talking about, Ben,
is this incident that happened in October. And I would
bet that people in Maryland and Pennsylvania know all about
this because that's when it broke free of its moorings
and drug that that tether And that tether that we're

(18:01):
talking about is what is it made of? It's made
of um, oh, hang on a second, I'll find it here.
But it's a it's a heavy duty tether and it
drug that thing across two states for what was it
one hundred and sixty miles and it was just out
of control. It was like it was. They couldn't stop it,
you know, they couldn't. They didn't want to shoot it
down because the thing's worth several millions, yeah, and it
rose to sixteen thousand feet. They didn't want to shoot

(18:24):
it down because it costs like a hundred and nine
million dollars, So they had two fighter jets escort it. Yeah,
across kevlar, that's what it is. These these tethers are
made of kevlar, so they're heavy duty teblers tether's rather,
and it was dragged. As it was dragging across it
was you know, it was busting power lines along the
way and there's some actually there's some people lost power. Yeah, yeah,

(18:47):
that's terrible. I mean, I'm laughing about it, but that
would be awful if that thing just you know, raked
across the power lines in your area, wouldn't it to me?
It's just it's funny because it's like a very slow
car chase. Well that's what this what it amounted to.
But the thing is this produced some really incredible photographs.
If you want to look at photographs from uh, you know,
people that were in that area on that day, you know,

(19:08):
news cruise or whatever. Because they were tracking this thing
over again a hundred and sixty miles. You got a
long time when this thing is just floating overhead. So
you remember the the just the most picturesque scenery that
we we saw on a road rally in Pennsylvania. Imagine that,
you know, with the barn and a nice field with
maybe some you know, like maybe a little bit of
fog on the on the on the on the ground

(19:30):
there and then above that is this crazy looking blimp
floating at some odd angle, dragging its tethers across the
you know, the forest that's nearby. It's just a weird look.
And of course surrounded by police cars. You know, there's
a lot of shots that have ten or twelve police
cars as they try to get from road to road
and follow this thing. Um. Here's here's one of the photos,
but I'm gonna show you but that that's exactly what

(19:51):
I'm talking about. And there there are things like Amish
buggies you know in the foreground with this just kind
of floating aimlessly behind it. So it made huge headlines
in the area, and of course it caused a lot
of damage. Um, and the military was pretty embarrassing about it. Right.
The program was very very close to being canceled, so
and this iteration, uh, this iteration of airship could have
also gone the way of the Dodo or the Hindenburg. However,

(20:17):
military sat down with Raytheon, i imagine, talked about j
Lens and they they worked out there they worked out
their concerns, They figured out what happened, which the which
was this there was a malfunctioning pressure sensing device and
caused a loss of air pressure and the tail fins,
leading to a loss of aerodynamic efficiency and combined with

(20:39):
the wind drag, that exacerbated the tension on the tether
and caused it to break. And there was one other
critical point here is that there's a little bit of
human air that was thrown into this mix as well.
So what happened was there was supposed to be a
system that would automatically deflate this thing if if something
like what happened, if it broke the tether, if it
if it recognized that the tethers can there's a electronic

(21:02):
feature that that would automatically deflated. And um so once
you know, before it ever got miles away from its
from its mooring, it should have deflated. The problem was,
you know, the human that was supposed to put the
batteries in the system forgot to put the batteries in
and that was the problem. So um, well, anyways, it
led to some you know, some down trees in Pennsylvania

(21:24):
and some power lines. As we heard um and you know,
of course face palm moment for the military, and I
guess well from Nora at too. I mean, that's the
what North American Aerospace Defense Command, the way that they
monitor Santa Claus every year. Yeah, and I mean I
suppose everybody was kind of like, oh man, this is
just a black eye on the on the program. However,

(21:46):
I think that they have said that they are going
to going to fund this program, so they're gonna add
some money to the because they realized the benefit in
as well. Everybody makes mistakes, right, and they worked they
worked it out together. You know, Raith on the j
lens team and the military did the calculations and they said, okay, yes,
this was a huge embarrassment, but the ability to sense

(22:10):
cruise missile technology at this level is worth the investment.
And you know omelet broken eggs. Yeah, well here's the
thing they've already invested. You know, at this point when
it broke free, they had already invested something like two
point seven billion dollars into this j lens program. And
you know, they said, well, here, we were going to
continue to fund this because we know we're close to

(22:31):
making this work. We're gonna give another twenty seven million
dollars to kind of reboot these operational exercises that are
happening at the Aberdeen UM facility and so it all
works out in the end, I guess. But um they
have been clear to fly again, so um the program
is underway once again. But but what a system this is,
because if if they can get this to work and
then the idea to have it where it is right

(22:53):
now they're trying to test it in an area where
they can sit and of course the other those backups
right now because it is is um the concept right
now really, I mean it's still at this point even
but they're trying to as you said, Ben, they're trying
to track cruise missiles or drones or any other threats
that might enter the nation's capital area and that can
then be um extrapolated to to work for the rest

(23:14):
of the nation. So they can put this on the coast,
they can put this wherever they want, you know, as
many places they want. But with that three sixty degree
was it three d and forty mile in all directions view,
that's a pretty significant system. And if it's if it's
as good as you know, um uh, sensing these things
as they say, it is uh, it's a it's a
great defense system. And again, these are entirely defense systems

(23:39):
as far as we know. These are surveillance systems that
will communicate with a system that has an offensive capacity
if necessary, something something or someone that can take action.
This is really just a monitor and it's an eye
in the sky, right. And these these high altitude uh,
these high altitude systems are still I think um still

(24:04):
have the potential to be dangerous. I mean, we'll we'll
talk about it in the next part of the show.
But there are clear and present and profound privacy concerns
that these things that these things forced us to consider. Yeah,
and those will come up a little bit more in focus,
I guess maybe right after word from our responsible and

(24:34):
we have returned Scott at the at the opening here
or right before we went to break. Rather we mentioned
the privacy concerns. I want to step back just just
a little bit to establish something that I did not
mention earlier. So we talked about the Jalens program. However,

(24:55):
the Jalen's program is not the only show in town. Uh.
Israel also as a also as a system, and it
is the Aeronautics Defense Skystar three. D Uh. This this
system is is the same thing. It's an I s
R system Intelligence surveillance, target acquisition, reconnaissance. Again, no offensive capacity,

(25:17):
you know, this is just surveilling and monitoring. And it's
been um it's an unmanned aerial vehicle. Uh so it's
been pretty successful in Israel. The Mexican government signed a
deal to get one for the Mexican Federal Police. So
this technology is being sold and spreading. But we know

(25:41):
that in most cases these are being used UM. I
guess the best way to say it would be like
by state level actors confronting you know, state level threats,
military stuff. But we know that the we know that
the surveillance blimps are not just relegated to the world

(26:03):
of the military now right. No. In fact, we've taken
this this military application and used it in for very
civilian use I suppose. Uh. Still, you know, it's still
police use, of course, but it's uh um. But it
is being used in a in a more everyday practical way,
I guess for for other things. And and one of
those is something that we witnessed in Rio back in

(26:26):
for the Olympics. Of course, the Summer Olympics were held there,
and this is a technology that was created by a
company called Logos Technologies l O g O S Technologies,
and the system itself is called Samara. I hope I'm
pronouncing that right, s I M E er A. And
the way the system works is it's actually a series
of four balloons that were requested, you know, by the

(26:46):
I don't know if it's the Olympic committee or the
the city itself that requested us for for protection or what,
but um, it's what they call is an unprecedented level
of security for the Olympics. And the way it works
is that, uh, these there are four balloons again that
hovered above the city with with the camera as simple

(27:06):
as that. Right now. These cameras are pretty sophisticated. We'll
get to to what those offer in just a moment.
But um, the guy that's in charge of this, his
name is John Marion and he's the president of Logos,
and he's quoted as as saying that we create a
Google Earth view of the city and update at every
single second, so we store every single thing that we
we capture on the count the camera and we can

(27:26):
go through it like TiVo, so they can back it up,
they can you know, watch it whenever they want. But
that's not the best part of this thing, Samara that
the system again called Samara, combines a wide angle view
with the ability to zoom in on any point at will.
The operator can open up as many zoom windows as
necessary to follow events in the ground with enough detail
to track vehicles and people while still getting the big

(27:47):
picture from its thirteen cameras. So I think that's just
I think what you're saying is one balloon is carrying
thirteen cameras, I believe, and then there are four times
that watching the city. So it's uh. Also the alternate
extension of picture and a picture technology. Do you remember
that how that used to be a big deal with TVs? Yeah,
I do, and I've you know, I've had that on

(28:07):
every television since and I don't think I ever use
it ever, you know, I honestly don't know if I
I have honestly never checked if my television can do that,
you know, before or when that became a thing. I
had a friend He's funny, guys. He is the old television,
you know, the big boxy ones that the tube TVs.

(28:28):
He had two TVs that he'd stack on top of
each other. He called a picture on picture and he
would he would have to two different stations and like
to you know, baseball games or whatever it was, you know,
picture on picture. That was clever. Yeah, that's a good idea.
I guess I got really heavy though, you know, like
I have to be the smaller TV on topic a stack.
But well, yeah, well you gotta put some thought into something,

(28:49):
I guess. Okay. Anyways, back to the main story here.
Um it says this guy goes on to say that
although it captures gigabytes of data every single set, and
the operator only has to see a tiny fraction of it,
so they they're looking, the person is monitoring what's whatever's happening,
is seeing about one ten thousand of what's available on

(29:10):
the screen at the time. So it's hard to really
picture this. Maybe, but there's this enormous picture like picture
at the size of your wall, and that's an extremely
high definition. You can zoom into any point of that
you want and watch. You can you can identify a person,
you know, from whatever altitude this is ten thousand feet
or whatever. You can then zoom into that tiny little corn,

(29:31):
but everything else in that picture continues to record, so
you can then later go back and zoom in on
something that's completely on the other side of town and
watch what's going on there. You can track people with this,
It's it's really remarkable. So you know, a human can
only watch one area at a time, but since everything
is stored, it's this invaluable forensic evidence. I guess that's

(29:51):
left over behind that you're able to just use this
footage for whatever you want. Now. The thing that probably
the craziest thing about this is you would think it
would be this in orm a set up, right, the
reality is it's about forty pounds. That's that's how much
the instruments weigh. So getting it up in the air
is really not an issue at all. It's forty pounds
of weight to get this Samario system. Um, and they're

(30:11):
all to monitor the entire city of Rio during the
Olympics using this system. How did it out? I guess
it worked fine. I mean we didn't hear of any
um because well, there was some real concern over um,
you know, I E. D S and things like that,
terrorist attacks and all that improvised exclusive yes, yeah, and
and you know the thing is he he had another

(30:32):
version of this, and this is you know again, this
is like the uh, the the evolution of the system.
I suppose UM whammy, which is w A m I,
which stands for a wide area of motion imagery isn't
anything new. In fact, this guy has been working on
something called constant Hawk for a long time at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and he had trouble, you know,
finding people that would support his idea up until this point,

(30:53):
you know, when he finally got it kind of out
into the public and he said, I spent a lot
of time going around Washington saying that you know, here's
why you need this and why. And it wasn't until um,
you know that this type of threat that we talked about,
you know, like the threat that we were thinking of
for the Olympics, that that might have happened, no one
really paid attention. UM his example, I guess maybe for

(31:14):
this one. He said, you know, the way I could
really sell this to you know, the Olympic committee was say,
let's just say that you know, there was bombing. You know,
something happened there in the city of Rio. It doesn't
matter where you know, what venue or anywhere. The analysts
could go backwards in the footage and see where the
car came from and where the driver went afterwards. So
if there was one of these improvised explosive devices, they

(31:34):
could spot the people that that actually laid this bomb out,
you know when, exactly when and where they did it
or how they did it. And then they could also
um figure out who is the trigger man for the device,
because that's going to be the person that's casually walking
away from the from the bombing. And that's easy to
spot on this thing because you've got this enormous view.
So it's really it's an incredible thing. But you know,

(31:56):
being able to track somebody, you know, forward and backward
in time. You can use this technology to locate um
safe houses, you know, of insurgents, or you know, anything
that you want. You can you can just track just
just about anything and see license plates, you can see
faces of people. It's clear enough to identify somebody and
uh and hey, of course, you know, we don't know
if they can be used in court of law or

(32:18):
anything right now, but I bet we'll find that out
in the near future, in the next couple of years. Probably,
and we're also we're also going to find out about
other types of airship applications for surveillance. Here's something that
we should we should mention is um we've already said
that these are by far not the only game in town.

(32:39):
The United Kingdom is working on its own version. Uh
and you you will see stuff like the the Dragon Dream,
which is an elliptical lighter than airship currently in a
manufacturing the process or limbo. They've built a prototype and
a half scaled proof of concept. Airships are going to

(33:01):
be a big deal because many ways they have They
have a versatility in terms of payload that a lot
of other aircraft would not have. I'm glad you asked, well,
take the take the h a V three oh four
that the Airlander ten. The Airlander ten, which is a

(33:21):
UK project, has a different has a mix of payloads.
So they can put in ground moving target indication radar
sort of like what was happening at Rio. They can
also do infrared sensors, electro optical sensors uh so detecting
um electrical activity, blue force tracking signals, intelligence, electronic countermeasures,

(33:45):
which is a little bit closer to something effective or
something like um, slightly offensive because that's essentially a way
to trigger deceive radar. Now, this is something that that
John Marion was describing is I think you called it
smart surveillance cameras or smart surveillance software, baby, because the

(34:06):
cameras that I was talking about sounds similar in the
way that that you're that you're talking about it you're
describing in that Um, they help you spot the bad
guys because there are certain actions they take that are
that are noted, that are that are um, um, you know,
known to law enforcement. They say, you know, uh, you know,
this guy is lingering in this area a little bit
too long, this vehicle is moving in this fashion, and

(34:28):
we know that that's typical of somebody who is doing
you know, this is evolved in this activity. Um. So
it's really interesting how they can identify potentially suspicious behaviors
by just kind of um flagging these these known behaviors
and then looking for that in this enormous picture, and
they're able to find it. They really are able to
find it. And it's it's clever. It's it's so clever,

(34:51):
and and they've well that's that's probably an obvious statement,
but um, they found also with these cameras, and I
don't know if this is the same with the one
that you're described, but they found that there's an optimum
number of pixels for the resolute correct resolution. You would
think it would be, you know, billions. The more pixels,
the more better, right, But that's not the case. They
find that there's kind of a sweet spot with several

(35:12):
million pixels. They won't say exactly, you know, what the
resolution is, but billions is not as good as millions
in this case. And you would think that that would
be the opposite. You think you always want more in
the in that situation, but um, another you spend. And
if I'm not going too far away from what you're
talking about, is that police think that they can use
this for um, capturing people that are involved in like

(35:32):
high speed chases and things like that. You know, like
when so if you're seeing like maybe an episode of
Cops or something like that, or you read about this
in the paper whatever. But let's say the car stops
and four or six people jump out of a car.
You know they're involved in some let's say a bank
theft or something. Yeah, they go everywhere, right, and sometimes
they catch everybody. Sometimes when one or two getaway, sometimes

(35:52):
all of them get away. In this situation, if you
had one of these systems monitoring this, you'd be able
to catch all six almost immediately because it can coordinate,
you know, with the ground effort in order to capture
them in real time. It's not something they have to watch, um,
you know, watch it tape. They can if they're monitoring this,
it can happen right then, it can happen in real time.
So this leads us to, as we said, the the

(36:15):
larger concerns. This type of aircraft can be a tremendous
asset when it comes to security right and being able
to monitor threats and hopefully stop prevent them from occurring.
It's an incredible tool. However, like any other technology it can,
it can have its dark side as well, and privacy
advocates are very concerned that these airships and other similar

(36:39):
craft could be used to track individuals by generating radar
geolocation data and correlating it with stuff like traffic cameras
or cell phone metadata, and a spokesperson for the Army,
at least in the case of j Lens said it
will not have video cameras, nor will it collect personal

(37:00):
identifiable information. Okay, so that one's just a just like yeah, yeah, okay.
Now it says primary mission is to track airborne objects,
secondary to tract surface moving objects such as vehicles or boats.
They can't track individual people. You know what. This vaguely
reminds me of the cameras that were first installed at intersections,

(37:24):
where uh, they claimed they were just a blind camera
that would just count like a like a a like
a blip on the screen, like just for traffic monitorings reasons,
to determine how many vehicles were going through an intersection.
It wasn't so much to catch somebody running a red
light because those we know, our video cameras, but the
early ones, people were so worried about those that they were,

(37:47):
you know, watching whatever they're doing in the car from above,
when really it was just simply a just like a counter.
Really it was just counting like one blip, two blips,
three blips. Yeah, it was an automation of This is
something you may you may have seen, folks, if you well,
if you're not very young, you know, I I am
old enough to remember, uh, the civil engineers who would

(38:09):
sit at intersections with the little clickers in a lawnchair
just count the cars. Yeah, sure, I just I didn't
know it was that guy's job. I thought he was
just weird. He just had some kind of O. C
D problem. He's just hanging out, hanging out their counting
cars like the only blue cars, only blue cars, of course.
But but do you see where it progressed to? It did?

(38:29):
It did progress to what the people had feared that
it was going. That progressed to the video cameras that
were then, yes, watching what you're doing, but you know, okay,
so mainly for uh license plates and running red lights.
But can I just point out one more quick thing?
And I know this is rambling now at this point,
but do you know that we talked. We talked about
that I A D five fire and the bridge collapse.

(38:50):
I heard something a little bit startling on the news
the other day about this. They said that, and I
had a hard time understand. I'm gonna have to look
this up in double check, but I think I heard
that that fire damaged thirty cameras that are used by
the the Atlanta Police camera. Now, okay, that's what I thought.
Now you had the same reaction that I have. It's

(39:11):
not a huge area. It's a big section of bridge,
like maybe what I think they're they're going to replace
something like seven feet of bridge. It's a big area.
I mean as far as like a bridge goes thirty
cameras though, well that's what I heard. Now, Now do
you think do you think the number was thirteen and
I heard thirty or I mean even so thirteen cameras
in that area, but I think I heard thirty cameras. Yeah,

(39:33):
I wouldn't check into that, and we know they're around,
but we don't know where and what they've focused. And
I wonder if that also has to do with you know,
if they're maybe they're a fiber optic or something, and
you know that if if you know the line is severed,
then you have to you know, replace the line that goes.
So maybe it's maybe it's more about the connection and
not the actual hardware itself. But I could see there

(39:54):
being cameras there because that bridge was a storage space
in violation of code, by the way, for a lot
of equipment. Okay, but but okay, again we're way off topic.
I'm sorry, but but the number was astounding, and I'm gonna,
you know, check that again when we leave the podcast today,
but what a blimp have helped? So? Because it's under
the bridge. So I'm sorry, I I've thrown us off

(40:15):
track here, but you're you're talking about the main question
that I had at the very end of this podcast.
And if you got more to add, please do Ben.
But but the main question I guess we have for
our listeners and for I suppose you and I we
can think about this TV. It comes down to security
versus privacy. Right, you want to be secure, You want
people to monitor what's going on. You wanted them to
protect you. Sure, but how much are you willing to

(40:38):
give up in your privacy? How much you willing to
give up in your your private life to have that
kind of protection? You know, somebody watching over your shoulder
to say yeah, you're okay. But then again, there's somebody
watching over your shoulder. And here's another problem. Can you
and this is open, it's open to anyone, folks. Can

(40:58):
you name a time that the US government has had
the capability to collect more information and require more power
and step away from it for ethical concerns. I see
a single time. Now. Usually it's a progressive thing where
it steps up a little bit, not a little bit more,

(41:19):
and then which salesman called the foot in the door strategy. Yeah,
there's an incident of some kind. They say, well, we
need we need to do this right now. So let's
past legislation that allows us to do that, whatever it is.
And it just gets a little bit more invasive and
more invasive as time goes on. And as we've talked
about in previous episodes, another thing that is frequently true
is this technology the evolution of technology typically outpaces the

(41:43):
evolution of legislation. We make laws after we figure out
what our new toys can do, Yeah, what it's capable of, right, right,
and and just hope it doesn't fall into the wrong
hands prior to that happening. But then again, if it's real,
if it's going to happen, legislation is not going to
stop it from happening. Scott, Can you imagine are we
are we looking at a future filled with evil blimp

(42:05):
tycoons and mastermind Yeah, people that know everything about everyone
that they they own a hundred zeppelins. Still I still
want to write a one. So this concludes our episode,
our our exploration on the future of airships. Yeah, and
I mean fine if they're being used for protection, right,

(42:25):
I mean, but what point do we decide that maybe
maybe it's a little bit too invasive for us. So
that's that's the question we have for you. You know,
this the security versus privacy thing? Right in and tell
us if you think that, you know, the blimps have
gone too far, we've gone too far. You know, progress
is fine, but you know enough is enough? Is there
is this a legitimate concern or is it a bunch
of hot air? I like, it's so bad that the

(42:48):
first time we've used that that we got so far
through this podcast without doing a hot air. I said
something about in focus in focus, Yeah that, Yes, let's
grade each other. You know, there should have been way
more puns in this episode. Yeah, there really should have been.
Ship we missed it? Can we get away at that way?

(43:10):
That was probably the best one. That was terrible? Right in,
and let us know some better airship puns, because obviously
we could use the help, and we have to do
one more thing. We needed to give people some nicknames
you had shift interest in. Let's go with Dylan hot air,
Facon Dirigible, Dylan dirigible, Fagan dirigible that I miss pronounced
it I zeppelin nuts doesn't rhyme though, I like I

(43:34):
like the like Dylan dirigible. I like the alliterative nature
of then. Yeah, that's nice dirigible and I'll get it
right next time. Yes, yeah, I know our next airship episode,
or maybe we can just call them dirigible around the
office and why not? So let us know what you
think about the rise of the Rise of the surveillance

(43:54):
aircraft and are they overall a good thing or a
bad thing? As we have said in previous episodes, are
you for it or again it? I got one more,
Tristan the all Seeing I oh, that's that's pretty good.
I don't know, I was pretying long. I mean, you
can't really put that on a jersey, you know, he's laughing.
I think he's got a jersey and you can fit
it on. Or no, he should get a blimp and

(44:14):
you can put put the name on the blimp. Of course,
why did I think of that? Blimps are now my
solution to every life problem. Man. You can buy an
r C blimp pretty easy. Yeah, yeah, but it's not
the same. Well, they fly them over, you know, like
in sporting events in the arenas, and they drop things
with you know, the little servo motors, coupons or you
know whatever I mean, souvenirs or something in the blimp.

(44:35):
I used to want to live in an RV and
now I want to live in a blimp. Live in
a blimp? Really? Yeah, it wasn't even on the movie. Okay,
we're gonna way off topic again. We should wrap this up.
You ever watched the movie up? I have not seen it.
Is there an evil character that lives in the Zeppelin? Well?
Then I have founded role model and I think there is. Yeah,

(44:56):
you should in the I hear the first ten minutes
of that are really sad. Yeah, can skip that you
don't want to? Just go yeah, and then then it's
a happier movie. So we are. We are heading off.
We will be back next week with a brand new episode,
and in the meantime, you can find us on Facebook
and Twitter, where we are car Stuff h s W.

(45:17):
You can also write to us directly if you have
ideas for something you think your fellow listeners would like
to learn more about, or if you happen to be
a blimp tycoon, well meaning or ill intentioned, that's fine.
I'm just into this blimp tycoon thing right to us directly.
We are car stuff at how stuff works dot com.

(45:41):
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