America’s crazy flying aircraft carriers could have actually worked

As the United States shifts its posture away from counter-terrorist operations and back toward great power competition with nations like China, it is being forced to reassess its aircraft carrier force projection strategy.

And a seemingly improbable concept that the U.S. has experimented with several times in the past is creating flying aircraft carriers.

DARPA’s Gremlin Program

DARPA’s X-61 Gremlin aircraft. (DARPA)

In January 2021, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA successfully launched a Dynetics’ X-61A Gremlin UAV from the bay of a Lockheed Martin C-130A cargo aircraft. The program’s goal was to demonstrate the efficacy of low-cost combat-capable drones that can be deployed and recovered from cargo planes.

DARPA envisioned using cargo planes like the C-130 to deploy these drones while still outside of enemy air defenses; this would allow the drones to engage targets before returning to the airspace around the “mother ship” to be recaptured and carried home for service or repairs.

The test showed that a drone could be deployed by the C-130, but the drone itself was ultimately destroyed when its parachute failed to open after the completion of an hour-and-a-half flight.

Between the success of this test and other drone wingman programs like Skyborg, the concept of a flying aircraft carrier has seen a resurgence in recent years.

The plan to turn a Boeing 747 into a flying aircraft carrier

Boeing 747 AAC drawing.

The Boeing 747 has already secured its place in the pantheon of great aircraft, from its immense success as a passenger plane to its varied governmental uses like being a taxi for the Space Shuttle or as a cargo aircraft. The 747 has proven itself to be an extremely capable aircraft for a wide variety of applications, so it seemed logical when, in the 1970s, the U.S. Air Force began experimenting with the idea of converting one into a flying aircraft carrier full of “parasite” fighters that could be deployed, and even recovered, in mid-air.

Boeing AAC design sketch.

Initial plans called for using the massive cargo aircraft Lockeed C-5 Galaxy, but as Boeing pointed out at the time, the 747 offered superior range and endurance when flying with a full payload. According to Boeing’s proposal, the 747 could be properly equipped to carry as much as 883,000 pounds.

The idea behind the Boeing 747 AAC (Airborne Aircraft Carrier) was simple in theory, but incredibly complex in practice. Boeing would specially design and build fighter aircraft that were small enough to be housed within the 747, along with an apparatus that would allow the large plane to carry the fighters a long distance, drop them where needed, and then recover them once again.

Sketch of a micro fighter inside a 747 fuselage. (Creative Commons)

Further concerns revolved around how well these miniature “parasite” fighters would fare against the top-of-the-line Soviet fighters they would conceivable be squaring off with.

Ultimately, the proposal never made it off the page. Boeing found the concept of a flying aircraft carrier to be “technically feasible” using early 1970’s technology, but the cost was prohibitive.

Related: Mako: Arming the F-35 with hypersonic missiles

The insane Lockheed CL-1201: A massive, nuclear-powered flying aircraft carrier

Lockheed CL-1201 flying aircraft carrier drawing. (Creative Commons)

The Skunk Works at Lockheed Martin have been responsible for some of the most incredible aircraft ever to take flight, from the high-flying U-2 Spy Plane to the fastest military jet ever, the SR-71. But even those incredible aircraft seem downright plain in comparison to Lockheed’s proposal to build an absolutely massive, nuclear powered, flying aircraft carrier – the CL-1201.

The proposal called for an aircraft that weighed 5,265 tons. In order to get that much weight aloft, the design included a 1,120 foot wingspan, with a fuselage that would measure 560 feet (or about two and a half times that of a 747). It would have been 153 feet high, making it stand as tall as a 14-story building. According to Lockheed, they could put this massive bird in the sky using just four huge turbofan engines which would be powered by regular jet fuel under 16,000 feet, where it would then switch to nuclear power courtesy of its on-board reactor. The flying aircraft carrier could then stay aloft without refueling for as long as 41 days, even while maintaining a high subsonic cruising speed of Mach 0.8 at around 30,000 feet.

The giant aircraft would carry a crew of 845 and would be able to deploy 22 multirole fighters from docking pylons installed on the wings. It also would maintain a small internal hangar bay for repairs and aircraft service while flying. Unsurprisingly, this design didn’t make it past the proposal stage, but the concept itself stands as a historical anomaly that continues to inspire renewed attention to this day.

The B-36 Peacemaker

A Convair GRB-36F in flight with a Republic YRF-84F. (U.S. Air Force)

This massive bomber weighed in at an astonishing 410,000 pounds when fully loaded with fuel and ordnance. Development of the B-36 Peacemaker began in 1941, when a was made call for an aircraft that was capable of taking off from the U.S., bomb Berlin with conventional or atomic ordnance, and returning without having to refuel. By the time the B-36 made it into the air, however, World War II had already been over for more than a year.

The B-36 had a massive 230 feet wingspan dwarfing even the B-52’s 185-foot wingspan. In its day, it was one of the largest aircraft ever to take to the sky. Despite it’s incredible capabilities, the B-36 never once flew an operational mission. Yet, the massive size and range of the platform prompted the Air Force to consider its use as a flying aircraft carrier, with Republic YRF-84F Ficon “parasitic” fighters as the bomber’s payload.

View of the YRF-84F from inside the B-36 — the pilot could enter and exit the cockpit from within the bomber. (U.S. Air Force photo)

The idea was similar to that of Boeing’s proposal in the 70s. The fighters would be carried internally to extend their operational range and then deploy them via a lowering boom, where they could serve as protection for the bomber, reconnaissance assets, or even execute offensive operations of their own before returning to the B-36 for recovery.

The U.S. Air Force ultimately did away with the concept thanks to the advent of mid-air refueling, which dramatically increased the operational range of all varieties of aircraft and made a flying aircraft carrier concept a less cost effective solution.

Related: America’s massive military advantage nobody talks about: 500+ Refueling Aircraft

Using rigid airships as flying aircraft carriers

The USS Macon recovering two F9C biplanes. (Creative Commons)

Although we very rarely see rigid inflatable airships in service to militaries today, things were much different in the early 20th century. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s airships (dubbed “Zeppelins”) were proving themselves to be a useful military platform thanks to their fuel efficiency, range, and heavy payload capabilities. These massive airships were not only cost-effective, but their gargantuan size made them extremely intimidating to the enemy.

However, that vast size also created the rigid airships’ massive weakness, as they was susceptible to being shot down by even the simplest of enemy aircraft.

Great Britain was the first country to try to offset this weakness by building an apparatus that could carry and deploy three Sopwith Camel biplanes beneath the ship’s hull. They ultimately built four of these 23-class Vickers rigid airships, but all were decommissioned by the 1920s. The U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics took notice of the concept, however, and set about construction on its own inflatable airships, with both the USS Akron (ZRS-4) and USS Macon (ZRS-5) serving as flying aircraft carriers.

Sparrowhawk scout/fighter aircraft on its exterior rigging. (U.S. Navy)

The airships were built with an apparatus that could deploy F9C-2 Curtiss Sparrowhawk biplanes and also recover them mid-flight. The airships and aircraft fell under the Navy’s banner, and the intent was to use the attached biplanes for both reconnaissance and defense, but not necessarily for offensive operations.

The biplanes were stored in hangars on the airship that were big enough to service five biplanes internally.

After lackluster performance in a series of Naval exercises, the Akron would crash on April 4, 1933, killing all 76 people on board. Just weeks later, on April 21, its sister ship, the USS Macon, would take its first flight. Two years later, it too would crash, though only two of its 83 crew members would die.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in August 2021. It has been edited for republication.

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