Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Navy MZ3A Airship #167811 continues operations amidst "tight" funding. [by Rick Zitarosa]

Navy MZ3A airship #167811 was up all day Saturday, providing a surprise visit to crowds on the boardwalks and "early bird" sunbathers at nearby beaches who were enjoying the first real "hot" day of Spring.

About ready to mark one full year since the first flight, the airship is undergoing mandatory Annual Maintenance Revue this week and is expected to return to the air early next week.

Meanwhile, funding for the airship to continue operating beyond June is a mounting concern. As little as the MZ3A project costs (about $5million per year for the entire operation) there is very little money to go around.

With $250million a day being spent on Iraq, every nook and cranny of the armed forces is being stripped of anything beyond bare funding. The MZ3A's role as a test, training and proof-of-concept vehicle for various promising airborne systems and operations notwithstanding, it remains to be seen whether the proponents of LTA can win continued funding.

One thing the airship has got going for it is a good operating record, the fact that it is already established inventory and the fact that from scratch the Navy people have created the only operational, fully-compliant current-military-standard LTA operation anywhere in the world with everything from tool/hardware inventory to Operational Risk Matrix appropriately documented, codified, quantified, etc.

The next few months should be interesting.

Rick

Thanks to Rick Zitarosa for this news item from the colorado Airship-list

4 comments:

Catherine2010 said...

Nice post. I enjoy this post gorgeously with all of my friends. Really nice.Thanks. Good information here. I really enjoy reading them every day. I've learned a lot from them.

Army News Zone

Health Nwes said...

Thank you for introducing me the wonderful information.And .....Totally boring.!

pharmacy reviews said...

it is sad to know about the financing problem. I don't know why they are trying to cut its funds.

viagra said...

I really appreciate sharing this great post. Keep up your work.