Why aren't Hot Air Balloons used as /k/
They're quiet and can be painted blue to camo against the sky. If it's shot down you can just parachute out. They're also way less expensive than a helicopter and essentially do the same thing for recon
Are we watching the evolution of Gliderfag's insanity here, folks? Gliderfag 2: Hot Air Redux?
don't know if you've ever been around a hot air balloon, but they're not quiet when the burner is on. and you have to fire the burner fairly regularly to maintain altitude.
You become a slow moving target
>>30200607
This.
And the fact that you're pretty much at the mercy of the wind.
>go to scout enemy
>float toward a position for 2 hrs
>wind changes direction
>blows you right over enemy autocannon
>everyone takes turns taking pot shots at the basket as you hover aimlessly for 8 minutes
>you try to parachute
>this only serves to make more entertainment for enemy
>they continue to shoot at you as you fall
>collect your corpse and put it on YouTube being sodomized with your gun
>>30200656
I don't know much about HABs but don't they have weights for this?
>>30200502
Maybe very high altitude drone baloons could be used for recon in shitholes like the middle east
>>30200838
already a thing anon
>>30200502
They kinda are. Strap sensor pods on them and you can watch the better part of a city for hours.
Lockheed offers a blimp that does it
>>30201405
Our armies use flying dildos now? Also did we just forget that large floating airships usually do a Hindenburg?
>>30201443
Only when using cheap and readily available Hydrogen. The military has budgets to justify so they use the fast depleting resource known as Helium.
>>30201405
Reminder that blimps are pure and innocent.
Though, if you gotta weaponized the sky manatees, then do it properly and strap some kind of "dronelike" system which detects targets automatically and launches a flaming diarrhea of ordinance towards the targets.
A floating, self-aware, weaponized sky-manatee
>>30201583
>putting your weapons and sensors on the same vehicle
JUST
>>30201600
Well if it sounds too bad then you could develop a system that separates the two functions. There would still be the weaponized one but also handful of stealthier, smaller, detector blimps which communicate in a network and coordinate targets for the weapons platform.
