Associated Press

A radar-equipped blimp in southern Arizona that helps authorities detect airborne drug traffickers is shown in Fort Huachuca in this file photo. The blimp will be replaced with a sleeker, less-expensive version. The new blimp, expected to be completed Sept. 10, will weigh 7,600 pounds and will be 208 feet long - 32 feet shorter than the original, officials say.

Friday August 31, 2001

A radar-equipped blimp in southern Arizona that helped authorities detect airborne drug traffickers is being replaced with a sleeker, less-expensive version.

The 12,000-pound helium-filled blimp, also known as an aerostat, floated over Fort Huachuca for 14 years before being taken down in mid-July. The new aerostat, expected to be completed Sept. 10, will weigh 7,600 pounds and will be 208 feet long, 32 feet shorter than the original.

The annual operating cost is expected to drop about 40 percent, from $5.4 million to $3 million per year. The new balloon will also have greater range, giving authorities a chance to monitor more of the airspace along the border.

The change is part of efforts to standardize the Air Force's aerostat fleet, said 2nd Lt. Michael J. Meridith, a spokesman for the Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va., which oversees the blimp.

Eleven other blimps tethered over drug corridors that stretch from Florida to California have already been replaced with the new system.

The information the aerostats gather is shared by the U.S. Customs Service's anti-drug effort and North American Aerospace Defense Command, the military agency charged with controlling U.S. airspace.

A handful of drug seizures can be linked directly to the aerostat's presence in southern Arizona. The most recent case was in 1999, when a pot-loaded crop dusting plane was seized after landing on a dirt road southeast of Willcox.

Law enforcement officials say the aerostat has been a powerful deterrent to airborne drug trafficking in this area.

The aerostat network was established by Customs and the Coast Guard in 1984, with the first site built at High Rock, Grand Bahama Island.

The Fort Huachuca site was the second to go into operation in 1987, with additional radar balloons at Yuma; Deming, N.M.; Marfa, Eagle Pass and Rio Grande City, Texas; Cudjoe Key, Fla.; and Lajas, Puerto Rico.

The plan to place the aerostat at Fort Huachuca was originally opposed by residents who feared the balloon could deflate and land on their homes, or break loose from its 15,000-foot tether.

Others opposed the site out of concern the blimp would detract from their view of the Huachuca Mountains, lower property values or result in official snooping into their private lives.

Sierra Vista dentist Donald C. Simpson said he still believes putting the aerostat in the foothills of the eastern slope of the Huachuca Mountains, where he and many others live, is a bad idea.

"I think it's a stupid location," he said. "Why put it here instead of other places on post, or when you've got a county with thousands of acres of empty land? Anything that flies will come down, eventually."

Real estate agent Fizzie Stachel said she believed concerns about the aerostat were baseless in the late 1980s and are baseless now.

"Nobody is opposed to it anymore. We've all gotten pretty used to seeing it. We don't even notice it anymore," she said.