I took the picture of Top Shelf below to the left in Boqueron the night before we left. If you look close, you will see a blimp in the background. For the first two days I thought this was a marketing blimp that you often see for a retail company. It wasn't until we go to La Parguara that it peaked my attention.
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| TARS Blimp |
I have been waiting for Julianne to return from a business trip for the last 7 days. I see this blimp go up and down literally with the weather. With all the time in the world I decided to investigate.
A few days ago, Julianne and I got as close as we could by water. Not good enough, so today I went on a long hike and found the front gate to the blimps landing pad.
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| Blimp Originally Seen in Boqueron |
This blimp is part of the Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS). It is a surveillance blimp that is used to detect aircraft and vessels. The first TARS was used by the US Air Force in 1980 to help with illegal drug smuggling. This first site was in Grand Bahamas, and subsequent sites included Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and the one I'm writing about in Lajas PR.
The top of the blimp is filled with helium and the bottom section above the radar unit is filled with compressed air. The blimp
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| Blimp Grounded for Storms |
carries an airborne radar capable of resolving images out to 200 nm along with a generator to power the radar and 100 gallons of diesel fuel. This thing is big. More than twice the size of the Met Life blimp.
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| Hike to the Landing Pad |
The most interesting thing to me is trying to find out what the tether line is made of. The blimp can withstand 65 kt winds and ascend to 25,000 feet. 420,000 cubic feet of helium supports its 2,200 lb payload. The diesel itself weighs 600 lbs. 25,000 feet of any line in the air has to be heavy. I wanted to know if it was some star wars kind of line. As I was looking for the specs of the tether which ended up being nylon and polyethylene I found that a previous blimp was lost at this site in 2012.
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| Google Earth view of Pad |
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| They are watching the French Boat |
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| Blimp at about 6,000 Feet |
On August 15, 2012, the tropical wave that eventually became hurricane Irene was approaching Lajas PR. The 6 person crew was attempting to retrieve the blimp, but the storm approached quicker than expected with winds increasing from 60 kt. The normal winch was not working fast enough so they attached the tether to a 43 ton truck with an extra heavy winch. The winds kept increasing and the blimp towed the truck off the landing pad and through a fence, then over 3 berms before the tether was severed. The blimp quickly began to climb, and despite the ground crew attempting to deflate the blimp remotely, the blimp's helium exploded at 7,000 feet. It landed in the hills of PR and no one was injured. And you thought the 1937 Hindenburg disaster was the last helium blimp to explode...
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| Descending Before Bad Weather |
This answered my final question of why the blimp is lowered every afternoon as the mountain thunderstorms pass. I guess if I was a drug runner, I'd fly by nice and low about 6
pm any night. This blimp is always on the ground.
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