Thread: Thailand to Use Blimp to Survey Muslim Insurgency

In response to the above:

Every airship operation in the world comes with an experienced crew..... Pilots, mechanics and ground crew. Airships cannot take off or land by themselves.

Pilots

unmanned

sorry , please try again

Originally Posted by Mid

Pilots

unmanned

sorry , please try again

Should have been pylons rather than pilots.

Pileons?
Thats what happens to the extra good looking whores on walking street isn't it?

Originally Posted by Dankhunthot

In response to the above:

Every airship operation in the world comes with an experienced crew..... Pilots, mechanics and ground crew. Airships cannot take off or land by themselves.

I believe the Thais are looking for unmanned airships tethered to the ground, with obviously a ground crew for controlling the rope and a bunch of techies to look after the surveillance cameras etc. So with your expertise of airships do you tink this is a good option?

How visible will this thing be?

I can see it now: "OK boys, time to attack that Army patrol, and don't worry about that thing in the sky, it's nothing to do with us"

Ok I will try again.....

This unmanned airship will have pilots as every unmanned airship does - they are the ones who operate unmanned airships. Also there is probably a good chance that it will be manned for the flight down to Pattani. The airship would not be built in Pattani as there wouldn't be hanger space big enough to constuct it - likely it will be up in Rayong for construction.

Originally Posted by Dankhunthot

This unmanned airship will have pilots as every unmanned airship does - they are the ones who operate unmanned airships

Thanks for the explanation. So the pilot of the unmanned airship is a woman then.

Army Commander-in-Chief Gen Anupong Paochinda Friday insisted the surveillance airship for the southern border provinces has no problems and is suitable for the purpose.

Army chief affirms efficiency of surveillance airship


didn't I hear something similar about the GT200 ?

Not quite the simple balloon some are suggesting.

Southern Situation - - Army Surveillance Airship Ready for Action in Deep South in mid-January

Originally Posted by Mid

didn't I hear something similar about the GT200 ?

I believe this airship will be equipped with those bomb detectors, as well as a Polaroid camera and some tape recorders.

Bang. The Thai's at their very best. Grieng jai to the idiot who pocketed the money.

Bang as i said. Very very big target.

^ The generals in charge of the acquisition weren't concerned about that... They were most likely more concerned about how much they could skim off the top of the transaction...

Interesting articles here, taster below. Worth reading the full thing and following the links.

Army zeppelin and corruption Political Prisoners in Thailand

Not that long ago PPT posted on army corruption, mentioning the army’s new airship, the so-called Sky Dragon. Readers might want to read that post for some background.



The Bangkok Post (5 March 2010) has reported that the 350 million baht airship is being handed over to the army today in Pattani, following a 6-month delay. The report notes “widespread criticism over whether the airship would be effective,” but says that the army has actually expedited delivery.



Apparently this has “caused a great deal of discomfort among pilots and members of the airship’s inspection committee as they fear being held accountable if it is not ready to go into service…”. Some of the committee went so far as to resign. Using an unnamed source, the Post says delays were because “it cannot fly and function according to specifications. The source said the army would not fine the company for the delay as the project had proved more complicated after the army requested the airship be fitted with more technical devices.”



It is said that the zeppelin “can now fly at an ‘unsafe’ height of 10,000 feet, while the company’s specifications should have it reaching as high as 30,000 feet. The company [Aria International] claimed the airship could only fly at that height when not burdened with all the extra military equipment. Worst of all, the source claimed the airship was designed for tourism, not for military operations. The army wanted Sky Dragon to have between two and four seats, but it has only one seat for the pilot and cannot take extra crew or passengers.”



So there you have it from a “source”: buy a tourism balloon from a penny company in the U.S., fill it full of equipment and it is useless, except that it has generated income for some.

Corruption and the military Political Prisoners in Thailand

She then turns to the army’s recent 350 million baht purchase of an advanced zeppelin which the army has named “Sky Dragon.” The airship was purchased from the US company, Arial International Cooperation. Wassana explains that the “airship is the brainchild of Gen Anupong and his second-in-command, Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha. They envision the airship as a sky-based surveillance and command station.” Leaving aside obvious questions about this assumption, the problem is that the airship can’t do what it is meant to, and there has even been trouble getting it into the air. The airship has seepage holes and it initially costs 2.8 million baht to inflate and then 280,000 baht a month to top-up. There has been considerable criticism.


The army decided to put on a show two weeks ago that was meant to deflect criticism. Thai PBS dutifully carried a long and generally positive report on this show. However, even the show flight was a failure and, according to Wassana, it remains in a hanger.



General Anupong had reportedly agreed to purchase three airships for the army. Wassana asks: “is it a bigger sham than the GT200?” Maybe she meant “scam”?

At Bangkok Pundit on 6 February 2010, a comment was added by “Reg, encouraging Bangkok Pundit to look into the zeppelin case. “Reg” stated: ”Why this machine and not drones as used almost everywhere else for this kind of recon work? What’s the track record of this model? What’s the price paid elsewhere? Have you seen dirigibles used in other insurgency situations? … Seems like there’s a smell there as soon as it is wheeled out. A quick Google seems to suggest that this is a Thailand first (a manned airship for counter-insurgency).”



Correspondent “Reg” then turns to the company involved and its website. He says: “Note its last stock trade was 1 cent. Have a look through the site and see if you have doubts about the company founded in mid-2008 and with 12 employees. How on earth did the RTA [Royal Thai Army] even know about them? It seems that one of the principals had previous experience with the RTA. According to their press releases, the RTA is their only client. It also seems that they are agents for the real manufacturers .”



“Reg” concludes: “I remain suspicious, but maybe that’s just because everything the military buys involves commissions etc. But, hey, you might want to congratulate the RTA for a 10 million dollar gamble that might show the world of counter-insurgency the way forward via a penny company.”



PPT agrees with “Reg”; there is a smell and the odor is money and corruption.



On a broader note, these are just examples of what happens when a military is politicized, when it runs a coup, and then has its budget increased by leaps and bounds. This is why there are so many very wealthy generals. This is what happens when a government owes its position to the military. The generals are in charge and they are hauling in the loot as fast as they can.



There are plenty of other examples. Just today the navy is reported to want two used submarines. Maybe they can dock them next to the used and idle aircraft carrier they bought several years ago, with planes that no longer fly.



Forget superstition, the beliefs driving these events are power, arrogance and filthy lucre.

Corruption and the military Political Prisoners in Thailand

Originally Posted by Dankhunthot

Every airship operation in the world comes with an experienced crew..... Pilots, mechanics and ground crew. Airships cannot take off or land by themselves.

Foreigners are forbidden by Thai law to pilot aircraft unless working on international airlines.

Originally Posted by mr Fred

I'm not sure if I'm guilty of stating the fucking obvious here but won't the terrorists sort of notice a sodding great balloon and hide or not actually do anything the government forces would be interested in. The terrorists may be a bunch of nutters but I really don't think they are so thick as to carry on while a massive bitch of a balloon is following them around.

What terrorists? Do you mean the Malay separatists that do not recognise Thai sovereignty over their lands?

Originally Posted by DrB0b

This is what happens when a government owes its position to the military. The generals are in charge and they are hauling in the loot as fast as they can.

They are completely above the law.

This and the recent GT200 bomb scanner procurement scandal, as well as the vast increases in military budget, not to forget the ISOC torturing and killing Rohignya refugees and then being allowed to 'investigate' themselves, show there is no stopping the military. They are in control and it will be difficult to unseat them now they have their hooks in.

They will crush any uprisings with brute force as they have done in the past and as recently as last Songkran.

One wonders, with the history of the Thai military's constant and brutal interference in politics how anyone can possibly still support this current government.

The Sky Dragon airship fail to satisfy the army in its latest test in Pattani province on Friday after it was unable to reach the manufacturer's claimed attitude and its cameras were still from perfect.

Airship still can't fly too high

Originally Posted by Beadle

What terrorists? Do you mean the Malay separatists that do not recognise Thai sovereignty over their lands?

That will be them.
My understanding is many of them live in North Malaysia and travel to Thailand to murder.
If they were attacking armed solders, I may call them freedom fighters.

Given they...

Originally Posted by http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4095326.stm

A Buddhist man has been found beheaded in the majority Muslim province of Pattani in southern Thailand

Originally Posted by http://www.xxx.xxx.xx/news/stories/2009/06/15/2598974.htm

Suspected separatists beheaded a rubber tapper and shot dead a school janitor, both Buddhists, in the latest violence in Thailand's Muslim south, police said.

Originally Posted by http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/Civilian-severely-injured-in-Narathiwat-bomb-attac-30123705.html

Narathiwat - A Buddhist villager lost his left leg and right arm when Muslim insurgents detonated a bomb Monday morning.
Suchin Kongsaeng, 47, and six neighbours were walking to a rubber plantation in Borkor village in Tambon Kosit of Takbai district at 8:30 am when the explosion occurred.
The blast amputate his leg and arm and the other villagers rushed him to the Narathiwat provincial hospital.

...........I will call them terrorists.
Unless you can explain how killing a Buddhist monk or murdering/maiming civilians is a legitimate act of war.

This monk in Batong, lived in a small retreat in the mountains. Not exactly a tourist haunt and we needed a 4x4 to get there.
(Told you I don't like the usual tourist stuff)
Their place was protected my Thai soldiers with US M16s. This was the first time I had heard of bastards coming out of Malaysia to chop the heads of people like this monk.



Islam and Muslims gets a lot of stick they don't deserve but, in the case of these twats, they are terrorist bastards who deserve a bullet.

End of.

Just as a note. All around was thick jungle. I don't care how many cameras you stuff on any aircraft, you could do a may day parade trough that and no bugger would see you.

These airships are going to be a real money spinner for a select few Generals. So all you naysayers and critics can go to buggery because this is Thailand.
You farangs no unerstan how Thais do business.

Originally Posted by Beadle

Originally Posted by mr Fred

Islam and Muslims gets a lot of stick they don't deserve but, in the case of these twats, they are terrorist bastards who deserve a bullet.

No, they are Malay separatists that live in the predominantly Islamic and Malay Southern provinces.

I notice you have fully fallen for the Thai government propaganda that started under Thaksin and that has labeled the Southern separatists as Islamic extremists that commit terrorist acts, linking them with groups like Al Qaeda especially after 9/11. And conveniently they come over the border, which is nonsense, just more BS from the Thai government completely unwilling to admit these insurgents are Thai and that there is a civil war raging within their borders.

The problem is the issue with Thai sovereignty over their lands. These people don't feel Thai, and are increasingly marginalised. Their culture and language are being steadily eroded.

Not to mention you selectively decide to note terrorist acts by the Muslim majority, but conveniently neglect to highlight the atrocities committed by Thai authorities which happen on a regular basis and are in no doubt responsible for the escalation of the conflict by the separatists in the time of the Thaksin administration.

Yea, but there may be some unexploited oil and gas fields off shore, so while the people may be ethnic Malay, the land still belongs to Thailand since the Poms drew that line on the map early last century. Getting rid of the people is the biggest problem.

Heres a little about the lighter-than-air project that Thailand have been involved in.

infowars.com
September 27, 2004
When Alex photographed the Fuji Blimp over New York during the RNC he was documenting the beta testing for something that's going to be nationwide. From the olympics to the RNC, blimps with ground-penetrating radar that can look through your walls are being used for surveillance globally. Read the articles that follow the one below for more on this Big Brother trend...

Surveillance Blimp to be Tested Over Washington
Washington Post | September 26 2004
In the middle of a cornfield in Maryland, a blimp glided in for a landing.

Eight men grabbed two long guide ropes that dragged them along, their heels dug in, until the blimp halted, hovering a foot off the ground. The sun momentarily dimmed as the airship's two propeller engines kicked up a swirl of dry corn husks.
The U.S. Army believes scenes such as the one that has unfolded repeatedly over the past two days near Freeway Airport in Bowie might be as much about the future as a quaint reenactment of a bygone time.
That is why the Army has leased a blimp from the nation's only airship manufacturer and outfitted it with sensors and cameras. Over the next week, the 178-foot-long lighter-than-air craft will conduct test runs over the Washington area. In the fabric gondola hanging below the envelope, a technician will aim a camera, mounted to the front of the cabin, at government buildings and military bases.
The tests are designed to determine how effective the electro-optical and infrared cameras are at detecting potentially threatening movements on the ground when attached to a blimp yawing in the heat currents as it floats along 1,000 feet in the air at 30 knots. The equipment already is used in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify enemy troop movement, but in combat zones it is attached to a static inflatable device that looks like a giant, blimp-shaped balloon.
The prospect that a helium-filled blimp is an idea whose time has come again is increasingly being considered by serious people charged with defending troops overseas and the nation's borders at home.
Among the interested agencies is the Department of Homeland Security. Unmanned drones are already used along the border with Mexico. The agency thinks blimps might be equally useful.
"We're doing a preliminary evaluation," said Chris Wells, an assistant chief with the Border Patrol. "Though it's old technology -- airships have been around for a number of years -- recent advances caused us to take a fresh look at it."
Aboard the blimp, Phillip Mix, an electronics technician with Crane Naval Service Warfare Center, sat before a television screen as the airship cruised above Route 50. The camera beamed images from 800 feet below -- shopping malls, woods and meadows. Mix said that on a clear day, the cameras can discern objects from six to seven miles away.
Although the technology is state-of-the-art, blimps have been used for military force protection for decades. During World War II, more than 150 blimps patrolled the East Coast on anti-submarine missions, escorting convoys out to sea.
From a blimp, it was possible to see a periscope in the ocean, said Norman Mayer, an Alexandria resident who is president of the Naval Airship Association.
"There was never a convoy lost while an airship was patrolling," Mayer said as he waited in the cornfield to board. A former Naval blimp pilot and semi-retired aeronautical engineer, Mayer has spent his career designing and consulting about blimps. He allows that whenever he mentions his calling to a new acquaintance, "They want to have me psychoanalyzed."
Fewer than 30 blimps are in use, and 19 of them were made by the American Blimp Corp. in Oregon, one of only a handful of companies making modern blimps. Another is a German company whose name is synonymous with dirigibles, Zeppelin, which has sold three in recent years, all for sightseeing.
American Blimp makes three sizes of blimps, which sell for $2 million to $4 million each. Most are used during sporting events.
"It's a fun business," said E. Judson Brandreth Jr., the company's vice president for marketing. "Goodyear did a study and found that universally, blimps give people a big warm fuzzy. People just like blimps."
Brandreth said American Blimp is promoting the use of airships as airborne surveillance. Many people wrongly assume blimps are vulnerable to bullets fired by, say, drug runners or terrorists.
"Almost everything people think they know about blimps is wrong," said Brandreth, citing the misconception that a bullet can bring down a blimp. The envelope is rip-proof. And many people seem to consider blimps moving targets.
"We often discover bullet holes when the airships are brought to our hangar for maintenance," he said. "People shoot at them. Particularly in the country. We think it's kids, not urban warfare. We just patch it up and go."
Pilot Jim Dexter emphasizes how safe a blimp is as he guides the airship above Maryland suburbia.
The blimp takes off and lands at a 30-degree angle, though it feels steeper. The eight seats come equipped with seat belts. Several gondola windows are open, and gentle breezes waft through and lift loose-fitting shirts in billows.
The ride gives the sensation of floating. Dexter works the elevator wheels beside his seat to adjust for the hobby-horsing caused by rising heat currents.
Dexter, who trained to fly fixed-wing aircraft but found airships were his passion, has flown during winds so strong that his blimp was blown backward. Like most blimp aficionados, he gets tired of the 1937 Hindenberg disaster being mentioned. The airship was filled with hydrogen, not helium, and caught fire because the paint contained a compound used in rocket fuel, Brandreth said.
"The Hindenberg always comes up, over and over," he said with a sigh. "If the engines quit, it's a balloon; you vent the helium, go down and land. If there's a rip in the envelope, you let the helium out and recover it later. It's a very safe aircraft."

Originally Posted by Beadle

Originally Posted by mr Fred

Islam and Muslims gets a lot of stick they don't deserve but, in the case of these twats, they are terrorist bastards who deserve a bullet.

No, they are Malay separatists that live in the predominantly Islamic and Malay Southern provinces.

I notice you have fully fallen for the Thai government propaganda that started under Thaksin and that has labeled the Southern separatists as Islamic extremists that commit terrorist acts, linking them with groups like Al Qaeda especially after 9/11. And conveniently they come over the border, which is nonsense, just more BS from the Thai government completely unwilling to admit these insurgents are Thai and that there is a civil war raging within their borders.

Not to mention you selectively decide to note terrorist acts by the Muslim majority, but conveniently neglect to highlight the atrocities committed by Thai authorities

Golly gosh.
I do know who they are and a little better than you I think.
Many are Thai who live in the southern states. many are not. They wander over the border from Malaysia to kill, then return home for prayers.
I can even tell you the town that one such group used to live it. As a westerner, I was strongly advised not to go out after dark in that place because of the danger from them. Guess what? I was in Malaysia.

Question. Why does it matter anyway? A soldier attacks legitimate targets. Can you explain how chopping the head off a rubber plantation worker is an act of war as opposed to an act of terrorism please?

Propaganda. Not really. I spent time in the area and found out for myself. If you speak to the right people it's not exactly hard to find out what is really going on. Did you or are you just spouting second hand crap?

I believe the area probably should be Malay and I also agree the Thai government have a good share of blood on their hands but that in no way releases these people from their crimes or provides any reasonable excuse for their murderous activities.