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Re:Drone Blimps Hovering Over D.C. to Stop Cruise Missiles by ihsw on Saturday July 27, 2013 @12:25PM (#6113463)
These ships likely have a unit cost exceeding $50M (considering that they're drone blimps), however the corresponding jet airliner JSTARS has a unit cost somewhere north of $250M. They're used as battle management and command&control tools, and the military branches will very likely want to keep them out of the hands of civilian LE departments due to all the expensive equipment on-board.

The unit cost of blimps vs rotorcraft is likely lower, especially regarding fuel expenditures, and many LE departments have expressed great interest in all kinds of drone surveillance. I would be surprised if these things weren't deployed in high-threat scenarios in municipalities.

Re:Drone Blimps Hovering Over D.C. to Stop Cruise Missiles by revelation on Saturday July 27, 2013 @12:54PM (#6113553)
That's wonderful logic except for the fact that the R&D likely cost billions and we are only buying a handful of these things. In fact, in these army projects, the number of final units bought is from experience inversely related to the cost explosion of the project in the R&D department.