UK Today News: BP Oil Spill Update: Giant Blimp Is Sent To Track The Oil Spill In The Gulf
A Giant silver coloured blimp is set to provide aid, by tracking the gulf oil spill on Tuesday. The Airship which belongs to the US Navy would help the officals who are working in the gulf by directing them in skimming efforts and to monitor any threat to marine wildlife due to the spill.
The Airship called MZ-3A, is a 178 feet long and will be flying slowly over the region of oil affected area in the sea.
According to the US Navy, the advantage that the blimp has over the helicopters which are currently used in the operation, is that, it would stay in the air for a longer time period and would also consume less fuel than the helicopters do.
The main job of the Blimp will be,that it would hover over the oil blobs floating in the sea, it would try to recognize the type of oil it is and then guide or summon the skimming vessels to that very spot.
But there has been a problem that has been hampering the cleanup efforts, the time it is taking to identify the oil and to start skimming it, in that time the oil starts to reach land and cause problems in cleanup efforts. And over that the rough seas and the hurricane witnessed last week had stalled the work for some time and cleanup efforts gradually declined speed.
