Airborne aircraft carrier

Following experiments with launching and recovering small aeroplanes using USS Los Angeles, the U.S. Navy designed Akron and Macon with internal hangars able to house a number of Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters.

[5][6] During her accident-prone 18-month term of service, the Akron served as an airborne aircraft carrier for launching and recovering F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes.

[8] Macon was designed to carry biplane parasite aircraft, five single-seat Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawks for scouting or two-seat Fleet N2Y-1 for training.

In service for less than two years, in 1935 Macon was damaged in a storm and lost off California's Big Sur coast, though most of the crew were saved.

The definitive Zveno-SPB using a TB-3 and two Polikarpov I-16s, each armed with two 250 kg (550 lb) bombs, was used operationally with good results against targets in Romania during the opening stages of the German–Soviet War.

The B-36 Peacemaker strategic bomber was at one point in the 1950s intended to function as an airborne aircraft carrier[verification needed] for up to four McDonnell F-85 Goblin parasite fighters.

[11] Operational F-85-carrying B-36s were to have been capable of refueling and rearming their fighters in flight, while deploying and recovering them on a trapeze-like structure similar to that of the Akron and the Macon.

To counter improving Soviet defences after the cancellation of Skybolt, Avro proposed a Vulcan with three Gnat fighters slung underneath.

[12] The Gnats were to have been released in enemy airspace to provide fighter cover, and they were expected to land "in friendly territory" or return to the Vulcan to replenish their tanks by means of a specially installed flight-refuelling drogue.

Since 2015, the United States Department of Defense has been investigating the prospect of deploying Dynetics X-61 Gremlins unmanned aerial vehicles[18] from modified Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft.