Recent Development Efforts for Military Airships

During the past decade s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has come to rely heavily on the continuous or nearly continuous presence overhead of both manned and unmanned aircraft to support ground troops. Unmanned aircraft that remain aloft in particular locations (or orbits) have been primarily used to provide timely information about activities on the ground and to attack ground targets on short notice. Most prominent among these aircraft are the Department of Defense s (DoD's) fleets of unmanned Predators, Reapers, and Global Hawks; however, satellites and manned conventional aircraft, including fighters and long-range bombers, have also contributed.