THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060379
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS AND ANN SAITA, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
Third District Congressman H. Martin Lancaster will announce in Elizabeth City today that the U.S. House has appropriated another $7.1 million to test anti-missile radar equipment for a huge new U.S. Navy patrol blimp now being designed by Westinghouse Airships Inc.
The Goldsboro Democrat will make the announcement during a visit to the Westinghouse Airship facility at nearby Weeksville, a Washington aide said.
``The appropriation is in a House defense bill that was passed just before Congress adjourned for the July Fourth holiday,'' said Edmund B. Welch, Lancaster's administrative assistant. ``It still has to pass the Senate, but we're optimistic.''
Westinghouse in 1987 got a $168 million contract to build a prototype Navy patrol blimp to test a radar system for a planned long-range Navy airship.
The anti-missile radar is also designed and built by Westinghouse and a major test of the equipment will be held off the Virginia coast sometime late this summer, Welch said.
``An air group from the carrier Eisenhower, backed up by an experimental blimp carrying the radar, will try to locate and track missiles that will be launched from Wallops Island,'' Welch said.
Welch said money for this year's test was appropriated by the 1990 Congress. ``The new money that was just approved by the House will pay for 1995 tests of the equipment that will be held off Hawaii,'' he said.
Westinghouse has already built a 222-foot blimp known as the Sentinal 1000 that was successfully flown in 1991 at Weeksville.
Eventually, the company hopes to build a huge Sentinal 5000 version, a lighter-than-airship that will be 430-feet long and will be able to cruise offshore for a week or more with heavy radar equipment and a large crew. The Sentinal 5000 has considerable support from the Navy as a future long-endurance early warning platform.
Defense cutbacks have delayed construction of the Sentinal 5000, but Westinghouse has built a mock-up control cabin in the Weeksville hangar to test fiber optic control systems and crew accommodations.
Lancaster, a captain in the U.S. Naval Reserve, will inspect the mock-up when he visits the Westinghouse facility today.
Lancaster is facing a major re-election challenge this year from former state Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. of Farmville, who is getting support from the state and national Republican Party. Jones is the son of the late 1st District Congressman who died in 1992.
The younger Jones switched to the GOP when Democrats failed to support him as a candidate to fill out his father's unexpired term. Instead, Rep. Eva Clayton, D-Warrenton, won that election and the regular 1st District Congressional election in 1992. by CNB