The days of business-as-usual for commercial airship operators have ended. In the age of terror, commercial airship owners and operators bear a responsibility – and have an opportunity – to contribute to the security of their homeland. Meeting that responsibility will involve convincing regulators, educating police and refining the tools that airships carry aloft. During the past year, airship operators have learned that they may no longer count on open skies, an endless stream of sponsors and a guaranteed red carpet welcome.
I come here as a U.S. Naval Reserve officer who has enjoyed some recent success in introducing a major city Police Department and a number of senior Navy leaders to the capabilities of the airship in this new era. And I also come here as a member since 1963 (and a former president) of The Lighter-Than-Air Society, celebrating its 50th anniversary by co-sponsoring convention. So I am actually wearing two hats.
Within the past year, the livelihood of airships has been jeopardized by three forces:
Despite these concerns, there is reason to be optimistic that commercial airships can help solve today’s most urgent problems. And that’s what I’d like to talk about this morning: a specific case study of how one airship operator generated substantial good will with local law enforcement. And I will discuss a potential solution that may be valid for every nation’s airship operators.
It may be asked why, in the period following 11 September, the US grounded airships longer than all other general aviation. After all, the people in this room know that airships can be part of the solution. But federal regulators seemed unaware of the airship’s potential. And the nomadic, itinerant nature of airship life precluded the building of long-term relationships with those they easily could have assisted – local law enforcement departments. That must now change.
While most of the early restrictions were eventually eased, Temporary Flight Restrictions remain in place even today over Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C. And a sweeping `open-air assembly’ TFR prohibits all aircraft operations within a three nautical mile radius and within 3,000 feet over any major professional or collegiate sporting event -- or any other major open-air assembly of people -- unless authorized by Air Traffic Control. Of course, this is the very airspace in which airships earn their keep – and where they can do the most good.
In the face of all these restrictions, last April I took up my Naval Reserve duties in the Command Centre organizing Fleet Week in New York City. It’s the nation’s premier naval exercise on the east coast each year, and has a vigorous public affairs component.
It had been customary for the previous 14 Fleet Weeks to welcome the public aboard our visiting Navy ships. This year, there was a real debate about the wisdom of doing so. Since September 11th, New York authorities and federal officials had been on continuous alert over threats to buildings, bridges, tunnels, monuments, mailboxes and just about everything else. Thousands of visitors mingling with 6,000 sailors on 22 ships and attending more than 250 discrete events all over town for seven days of Fleet Week presented an enormous security challenge.
Recalling an offer made by George Spyrou of Airship Management Services to a Congressional committee last fall – that his firm would provide an airship to any law enforcement agency for one week -- I invited him to send an airship to New York to operate with our security forces. The idea was immediately embraced by the U.S. Navy’s Anti-Terrorism / Force Protection Team and by the New York City Police Department’s Office of Counter-Terrorism. The airship – a Skyship 600 -- was integrated into a robust anti-terrorism and force protection plan. The airship’s sponsor, FujiFilm, supported this plan completely. They paid for installation of a gyro-stabilized broadcast camera, the live imagery from which would be transmitted to two security posts on the ground, where representatives of numerous law enforcement agencies would monitor it.
But how would we get around the flight restrictions in place near the World Trade Centre site? Part 91, Paragraph 137 of the U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations states that no aircraft may fly in restricted airspace unless, among other conditions, "the aircraft is carrying law enforcement officials." That became the key to a win-win operation for the Navy, for the NYPD, for Airship Management and for FujiFilm.
We were helped by the fact that Charles Huettner, who spoke at last year’s convention in Akron and was serving as the senior aviation policy advisor in the White House, had expressed personal interest in exploring the airship’s possible support for the homeland security function – and in fact, he came to New York himself to participate in one of the patrols.
As it turned out, that week we conducted twenty-one airship patrols carrying more than forty Naval officers, twenty-two members of the NYPD, and fifteen other senior law enforcement personnel from a variety of agencies. It became a working demonstration of the airship’s utility.
Operationally, the airship flew over the incoming Parade of Ships coming up the Hudson River, watched crowds, street traffic, air traffic, and maritime traffic, and provided camera surveillance around the two sites where ships were berthed. Ultimately, more than 158,000 visitors safely crossed the decks of Fleet Week ships.
As it turned out, this airship may have proven its worth on the first day as the Navy ships were steaming into port. Here’s a revealing story:
We were in the airship hovering 1,500 feet over the Statue of Liberty when a rogue aircraft was spotted -- a single-engine red and white Cessna with retractable landing gear. Its pilot was not responding to Air Traffic Control and was not squawking an ident on his transponder. The small plane was flying right up the Hudson River toward the final ship in the parade, Fleet Week’s centerpiece, the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima.
We locked the airship’s camera on the intruder as Air Traffic Control continued trying without success to contact the pilot. At the Security Post in mid-town, law enforcement officers fell silent as they watched our live transmission of the plane approaching. A police helicopter and a Navy helicopter were dispatched. When the Cessna saw them approaching, it quickly turned tail and exited the harbor in the direction from which it had come – over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and close to the water.
Ironically, the wardroom on board Iwo Jima knew nothing about this. The ship’s air and surface radar were shut down to avoid interfering with three live television broadcasts – CNN, FOX and the NBC affiliate – originating from the flight deck. It was a period of unique vulnerability for the ship – and another lesson learned.
In the unclassified portion of his After-Action Report, the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Group Eight Anti-Terrorism Officer praised the airship’s capabilities and recommended that the airship participate in Norfolk-based exercises to train deploying battle groups.
At the Naval Air Warfare Center in Patuxent River, Maryland, new momentum began building for an Airship Maritime Awareness Initiative, which would over the next five years deploy airships over five strategic areas of fleet operations.
Another effect was that almost immediately, the NYPD began petitioning for more access to the airship for specific events during the remainder of the summer. It is noteworthy that the NYPD is in discussion today with other agencies such as the U.S. Secret Service (soon to join the Homeland Security Department). They are now testing communication and sensing hardware from the same airship.
Applying the lessons
So the timing is right for applying the lessons of New York Fleet Week to other activities, ranging from large-scale port visits to the arrival and departures of battle groups, and public festivities in general. You and I know that providing real-time, high-resolution data on demand is the airship’s unique advantage. It can offer nearly continuous surveillance over areas of interest such as harbors, borders, coastlines, petrochemical pipelines, and so forth, where it can keep an eye on human, vehicular and maritime traffic. Of course, what we created in New York is not the perfect model. We learned many things and we catalogued many pieces of equipment that could enhance the airship’s potential.
And although this aspect of eye-in-the-sky security has not been widely publicized, informal cooperation has in fact taken place between airship operators and law enforcement personnel for many years without fanfare.
In light of current events, it is now time to formalize these relationships. A successful new relationship will require three things:
1) continuous public education of civil aviation authorities as well as local police about the airship’s unique capabilities.
2) that airship operators introduce themselves to law enforcement officers and build relationships by offering them seats on every flight, especially over urban areas, and
3) that airship operators participate in devising, developing, and deploying new tools for airborne security.
A unique opportunity exists for the industry to develop a portable, fly-away kit. Because significant costs are associated with high quality broadcast equipment and the suite of electronic devices required for a good security and surveillance program, these fly-away suites should be purchased by a federal government – and leased or loaned to localities for special needs.
So the challenge for the DoDs and the MoDs is to develop a standard security and surveillance pod that will augment existing assets. Such industry-government cooperation is not new. A British Army crew, for instance, operated the camera and other sensor equipment aboard the Atlanta Police Department airship during the 1996 Summer Olympics. Here in the U.K., DERA, (now QinetiQ) has done significant research into equipping airships for specific surveillance missions.
Outfitted with universal fittings so it may attach quickly and easily to a Lightship, an ATG-10, a Skyship or a Zeppelin – such a fly-away security pod should contain at a minimum:
Using various combinations of such tools, nations around the world have employed airships for specialized surveillance missions –notably in Paris for the July 1989 G-7 Economic Summit; over the U.K., in 1993, where the British Ministry of Defense purchased an airship for trials; in Tokyo in 1989, where police purchased an airship for patrol and surveillance, and in Kosovo, where the United Nations leased an airship for a trial in mine detection.
The results have been positive. Former deputy chief of the Atlanta Police, Jon Gordon, equates the airship to a "poor man’s satellite" and says it was essential for "consequence management" and "crisis management" during the 1996 Olympic Games, where they dealt with more than 900 bomb threats.
The business of airships is changing
In summary, law enforcement personnel today have an extraordinary opportunity to climb aboard. Commercial airships should have the opportunity to conduct routine operations and continue booking revenue by displaying sponsor’s logos, carrying passengers, broadcasting sport events – and providing a crucial public service when called upon.
Times have changed and the technology has changed. There is an opportunity to marry the old technology of airships with new technology to meet today’s threats. Commercial airships can play an extremely effective role as a tool in the modern security arsenal. Better yet, it can do so at little or no cost to government.
I am confident that sustained interagency cooperation and data sharing will pay reassuring dividends during the present terrorist threat and in future civil disturbances. The business of airships is changing, but I believe there are bright prospects ahead.