IntroductionThe United Nations (U.N.) and its Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) have an urgent need to transport large quantities of aid and supplies to U.N. peace operations and humanitarian centres located in "the world's most remote and challenging locations, often under precarious security conditions" (World Food Programme, 2017). This study examines whether the United Nations should take steps in the near future to exploit lighter-than-air (LTA) aircraft, whose natural buoyancy provide, in principle, distinct operational advantages. This issue is timely, given the broad progress made by numerous manufacturers in the construction, propulsion, and operational management of LTA systems over the past several decades. These developments potentially offer U.N. airlift planners some credible options to exploit the inherent flexibility and energy efficiencies of these systems. At the same time, recent progress has accentuated persistent challenges to reliable and safe LTA operations, particularly in the face of bad weather and threats from groups hostile to the U.N. operations mission. Consequently, this report will provide some historical and technical background and will proceed through four discussions: (1) the potential advantages of LTA operations; (2) their disadvantages; (3) current developments in available systems; and (4) their general application to peace and humanitarian operations.
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