Airborne Aircraft Carrier

[ORAC]

Found this from a link in Defence Industry Daily where they were discussing the mooted new bomber for the USAF. Seems a bit of a wacky concept....

Narrowing the global-strike gap with an airborne aircraft carrier (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NXL/is_2_19/ai_n15623107/pg_1)

....."The AAC concept uses a Boeing 747-400 mother ship to transport and employ both a single stealth fighter in the piggyback configuration and a single UCAV carried under the fuselage. Air-to-air refueling will provide global range, enabling each AAC to remain airborne for days at a time. A retractable, protective shroud will cover the nose and cockpit of the stealth aircraft so its pilot can move freely between the AAC and fighter. Mechanisms to launch and recover the airborne stealth fighter and UCAV will facilitate multiple sorties by the parasite aircraft. Between missions both the fighter and UCAV will refuel and rearm while docked with the mother ship. After two or three coordinated strikes over the course of 12-24 hours, the mother ships will return the fighters and UCAVs to the CONUS for maintenance and regeneration as another group of AACs replaces them. The AAC concept will neither serve as a substitute for nor attempt to generate the sorties of a naval aircraft carrier. Instead, a fleet of AACs will enable the marshalling of high-payoff "silver-bullet" strike packages at the strategic and operational levels of war early in a campaign as a means of overcoming access denial and setting conditions for the deployment and employment of theater-based conventional forces...........

[Not_a_boffin]

Somebody's been reading a lot of Dale Brown's Megafortress novels....

[Zoom]

It's been tried before in various fashions and rejected. :ugh:

[Pontius Navigator]

Yes, the Vulcan was there first. There was a scheme to carry a couple of Gnats under the wings as escort fighters.

Then of course there was the Mayo Composite.

And the Baka bomb.

Apart from the Mayo the problem was always recovery; in the case of the Baka that was less of a problem. Flying training could also be cut to the minimum - no need to practise take-offs and landings.

[scroggs]

How about Captain Scarlet's Skybase?

[airborne_artist]

And there were a number of airships planned to carry and launch fighters in the 1920s, ISTR.

[ORAC]

They did the trials with the Goblin (http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/McDonnell-F85/f-85.php) hooking up and unhooking from the trapeze on a B-29 trials aircraft. But that was designed as an escort fighter for the B-36, not a bomber. Ugly little SOB as well.

http://www.photovault.com/link/Military/AirForce/MYFVolume03/MYFV03P08_02B.1699.jpg

And there were a number of airships planned to carry and launch fighters in the 1920s, ISTR Not just planned, they had them in service for several years. F-9C Sparrowhawk (http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/ac-usn22/f-types/f9c-d.htm)

[GlosMikeP]

Ah, but it's put up as a 'concept', which could well indicate it's with DARPA, who test the logic of supposedly whacky ideas and throw out the mostest earliest. Only a few make it forward, but that's how defence research ought to work. It certainly seems to pay off in US.

Actually it's how we used to do defence research, but we stopped it because it was said to be too expensive and produce too few good results. Interestingly I saw a comment that we might go back to the old model!

[Kitbag]

The B36 was also trialled with an F84 Thunderstreak specially modified to link up in the bomb bay. These ac could have been used as bombers, their main role was Ground Attack.

The concept may be more succesful now, the biggest problems were controlling the smaller lighter aircraft in close proximity to its mother ship, modern flight control systems can probably cope with the disrupted airflow rather more efficiently than the pilots of these earlier attempts.

[Jackonicko]

"Needing more intelligence during the early part of the Cold War, the service shifted its emphasis on the parasite from fighter escort to reconnaissance; for a very short period of time, the Air Force operated a GRB-36 squadron that carried RF-84 fighters using the bomb-bay trapeze assembly (fig. 4)."

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj05/sum05/fig4Kramlinger.jpg

Twenty-six Republic RF-84F Thunderflashes were converted to the RF-84K FICON parasite configuration, equipping the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron at Larson AFB, Washington. Ten RB-36Ds were converted to serve as FICON carriers, equipping the 348 Bombardment Squadron at nearby Fairchild AFB, Washington.

The Air Force conducted evaluations of the FICON composite aircraft system at the Air Proving Ground at Eglin AFB, Florida, the Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, and the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California in 1955 and 1956.

FICON training operations were undertaken in December 1955, but ended in January 1956 after several 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron pilots damaged their aircraft while trying to hook on to the trapeze.

[teeteringhead]

Not just planned, they had them in service for several years. F-9C Sparrowhawk... last time I was at Pensacola, there was a very good exhibit about the airship carriers (Akron and Macon IIRC) in the USN Flight Museum.

Don't know if the exhibit's still there, but the museum is worth a trip anyway if you're around the Florida panhandle or UCLA (Ugly Corner of Lower Alabama).

[edited to add:]

Looks like it's still there. Pictures and an article here. (http://broadcast.illuminatedtech.com/display/story.cfm?bp=109&sid=8080) (NB slow loading!)

[LowObservable]

The problem with FICON was that if you could not hook on you were low on options... maybe they should have invented the Fulton recovery system and put that on the B-36.

[Kerosene Kraut]

That idea sounds like what the germans used some of their zeppelins for in WW 1.

Cruise missiles and drones are part of today's inventories. Can't see any need for reinventing flying aircraft cariers beyound that.

[dakkg651]

I believe it was the Russians who first experimented with fixed wing aircraft carriers. This culminated in the early thirties with a Tupolev TB3 four engine bomber taking off with two I-16 fighters carried above the wings and two I-5 fighters below. Once airborne, a trapeze was lowered from beneath the fuselage to collect an I-Z fighter. All five fighter aircraft could be released at the same time. Using the fighters engines to achieve take-off meant the bomb load of the TB3 was only slightly reduced.

They still abandoned the idea though!

[Polikarpov]

http://aerostories.free.fr/appareils/compopara/aviamatkaPVO.JPG

The success and effectiveness of the SPB Zveno in its 30 combat missions was striking, especially considering that both TB-3, and I-16 fighters were already obsolete by the time they were called to defend the motherland. Bridges over Danube and Dniepr, oil fields, docks of Constantsa, and other targets all fell victim to Zveno raids. German Field-Marshal, Erich von Manstein, in his memoirs implicitly blamed the final loss of Stalingrad battle on Russian bombing of the bridge over Dniepr at Zaporozhje in August 1941. Two Zveno SPB composites were responsible for this attack. The bridge was not repaired before autumn of 1943, much too late for the fate of German troops. Despite their successes, the truth about Zveno missions remained secret to the outside world, long after the end of the war.