lighter-than-air vehicles - Defense Innovation Marketplace

Table 21: Blue Devil 2 Technical SpecificationsLength: 370 ft.Diameter: 87.2 ft.Volume: 1,400,000 cu. ft.Max Payload: 1,500–2,500 lbs.Airship Basic Weight: 42,600 lbs.Figure 32: Blue Devil 2 Technical Drawings 34Flight ceiling: 20,000 ft.Duration: 2–4 daysCruise Speed: 80 kts.Mass: 33,000 lbs.Payload Power: 30 kWPayload Type: Wide-area Field of View (WFOV) EO/IR, Narrow-area Field of View (NFOV)EO/IR, COMMS, SIGINTThe Blue Devil 2 is the second WASprogram to bear the name, following onfrom the manned Blue Devil 1 system that iscarried on the fixed-wing Beechcraft KingAir 90. The Blue Devil 2 program waslaunched in October 2010 sponsored by AirForce Headquarters (HAF)/ A2Q (Air ForceISR Innovations Division), which used theArmy’s Engineering Research andDevelopment Center (ERDC) to award acontract to Mav6 (formerly Ares SystemsGroup). 35 The program was managed byHAF/A2Q until Secretary of the Air Force(SAF)/AQI (Acquisitions Division) wasbrought on. Big Safari was then directed toassume management and subsequentlyawarded a follow-on contract to Mav6 inMarch of 2011 to continue airshipdevelopment and integration. The initiativecontinued to receive support from JIEDDO,which provided a portion of the funding for2011 fiscal year. 35The Blue Devil 2 began FY10 as a QRCeffort to integrate commercially availableairship technology with primarilyGovernment Furnished Equipment (GFE)sensory payloads, but the programexperienced airship envelope and technicalsetbacks during development includingrecent failure of the tailfins during testing.Figure 33: Inflated Envelope without Tail Fins 3441