It is hard to keep a good blimp down

Well, not in the case of the inaptly named Sky Dragon, which seems to be a reptilian monster that can only look at the sky while consuming its only natural food, the taxpayers’ baht.

Purchased in 2009 from a company that had no other business to speak of, then army chief General Anupong Paojinda seemed to think that a blimp was a good deal. Since then, the zeppelin has almost never flown and has never been operational. It also has high maintenance costs of about 30 million baht a year and requires 80 soldiers to look after it.

In other words, the purchase has been a complete waste of taxpayer money.

And yet, according to the Bangkok Post, the Army has still has no plans to sell its grounded and non-operational airship. How could they? Who’d want to buy an unserviceable and expensive wreck? The Army is apparently still “looking for a firm to fix its problems…”. That is estimated to cost a further 50 million baht.