Replies to post #76238 on World Surveillance Group Inc (fka WSGI)

[Skyvision]

You are generally correct, although SAR does not have to space based based.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_aperture_radar

Tactical aircraft and spaced based systems move in the 100's to 1000's mph. I submit that a strat's groundspeed may not be enough to get good SAR performance (if station keeping).

Lower altitude ships may achieve some performance as they potentially have the power to produce greater speed, but still not faster than a helo - and I don't know of any helo's with SAR. ISAR may be effective.

Airship proponents recognize the utility of a large envelope to house a truly wide aperture radar that can't be housed in conventional aircraft, or in the case of ISIS, the envelope becomes a wide-aperture radar.

There is a UWBSAR application I hve read about used on an airship to find land mines, but I think it has to be relatively close to ground (few hundred feet?).