Heads up Pennsylvania – Apparently it’s knocking down power lines as it drags a tether behind it.

blimp 1MARYLAND – One of the two unmanned military anti-cruise missile blimps monitoring the eastern seaboard became unmoored from its Maryland station on Wednesday, scrambling two F-16s at over 16,000 feet as it floated over Pennsylvania.

According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the blimp, or JLENS (short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System), detached from its mooring station at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland approximately 70 miles from Washington, D.C.

UPDATE 3:00pm/ESTJust Spotted over Bloomsburg Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania blimp

[…]  The 243-foot long blimp is more precisely an “aerostat,” according to a fact sheet produced by defense contractor Raytheon, monitoring airspace for cruise missiles and other moving machines from up to 340 miles away. And it can stay airborne for up to 30 days at a time.

The first such blimp launched last December as part of a three-year test exercise to gauge its effectiveness over the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. (link)

BLIMP 2

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