Talk:Tethered Aerostat Radar System

Lockheed Martin?
When I worked at Cudjoe Key Air Force Station, Cape Canaveral AFS, and Patrick AFB, the prime contractor for SEEK-Skyhook/TARS was RCA Aerostat Systems, my employer. Site support was provided by PanAm and hourly employees were IBEW members. Also, aerostats are NOT blimps. 174.247.253.253 (talk) 22:15, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

New aerostat in Yuma?
There appears to be a new TARS site at 33.03364, -114.45450 in Yuma, AZ. Galen Asphaug (talk) 06:35, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Poland is buying?
It appears 4 of them (420K) were ordered by Poland. 188.33.242.16 (talk) 14:29, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

No airborne images?
All images were taken of TARS on the ground. It seems important to have an image of the system airborne and running. Nilederg (talk) 00:15, 25 March 2024 (UTC)


 * When they are at altitude there is hardly anything to see. The land-based restricted airspace goes up to 14k feet. Read about the civilian airplane that hit the CKAFS tether that resulted in the loss of the plane and the aerostat to understand why you don't want to get an in-flight picture. 2600:100B:B134:E508:0:2F:68CB:8F01 (talk) 15:52, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * My mistake: the aerostat was not lost but three people were killed in the C182. See MIA07FA083 for the AOPA accident report. 2600:100B:B134:E508:0:2F:68CB:8F01 (talk) 16:56, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

History
The origin of the TARS program was when a Cuban MIG defected, flew up to Homestead AFB on the deck and was undetected until he entered the pattern and landed. The USAF decided they needed radar coverage of the Straits of Florida and chose the Cudjoe Key DEW Line site and RCA to develop the system. Ted Yon was the aeronautical engineer who designed the first 350k ft^3 cruciform tail aerostat although I was told they used a surplus barrage balloon for proof-of-concept and testing. Ted also designed the smaller ship-born inverted Y tailed version that is seen in the M/V Atlantic Sentry photograph. It looks like the same design as the southern border and military land-based aerostats. The initial radar was the A/N DPS-5 utilizing a coaxial magnetron transmitter with coherent-on-receive for MTI detection. 2600:100B:B134:E508:0:2F:68CB:8F01 (talk) 16:42, 28 March 2024 (UTC)