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Fictional Examples

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This type of machine is very common in fiction, particually sci-fi. Shouldn't there be section on it? Obvious recent examples would be Doctor Who (The Sound of Drums) and Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow, both of which have hovering aircraft carriers. --J.StuartClarke (talk) 15:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone know any more works of fiction with flying carriers? --Johnruble (talk) 03:22, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spectrum's Cloudbase in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons is one example. If these do get a page, I'd suggest something like Carrier aircraft in fiction — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:19, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/German_biplane Hoemaco (talk) 12:27, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Project Burlak

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http://lib.rus.ec/b/166169/read Towage of fighter aircraft (MiG-15bis) by bomber (Tu-4) (in russian, somewhere in the middle of article. "Aviation and Time" magazine).Ходок (talk) 15:28, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In English http://www.maquetland.com/v2/index.php?page=vision&id=1162Ходок (talk) 17:10, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article title

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Is "Airborne aircraft carrier" the best title for this article? "Carrier aircraft" is the more usual phrase, though Wikipedia currently uses this for a disambig page. The other meaning, as a Carrier-based aircraft, has its own article. Would it be reasonable to move the content of this article to carrier aircraft and just leave a disambig link at the top? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:09, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with "Carrier aircraft" is that to most people, it means carrier used with wet-navy ships called aircraft carriers. The current name is descriptive, so it works, if we rename it to "carrier aircraft", it would need to be at a disambiguated form, and not at the base name. Carrier aircraft (aircraft carrying aircraft) or somesuch, defeating the purpose. 70.49.124.225 (talk) 04:57, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I see what you mean. But I still don't like using a made-up phrase for an article title. Would merging the content into Mother ship and redirecting be better? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Descriptive titles are just that, they are not prescriptive titles. Any phrase that can describe the topic can be used as a title. As such, descriptive titles can be replaced by another descriptive title, if the newer title is in better English. Prescriptive titles are like "carrier aircraft", a term used as a name. Descriptive titles should not need disambiguation, otherwise they are not descriptive enough and so should be changed. Prescriptive titles are set-terms that will at times require disambiguation.
Do you have a different descriptive title to use? (ie. aircraft carrying aircraft)
As for merging, mothership isn't all that specific, whereas this is a much more specific article, so I think it should exist as a separate article. But you can slap merge tags on and list it at WP:PM and inform WP:WikiProject Merge if you want.
70.49.124.225 (talk) 05:59, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree "carrier aircraft" would be expected by the majority to mean that which flies off a ship. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:30, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Revisiting a year later

So now I have found a reference: Ege, L.: Balloons and airships, Blandford (1973), Page 204, "...ZRS-4 was a real aircraft carrier. It had been found feasible to attach an aeroplane to Los Angeles in flight and later release it again, but ZRS-4 could, while in flight, actually receive in flight five scout or reconnaissance aeroplanes and store them in a special hangar inside its huge belly." To me this is unequivocal: any mere mothership such as the Los Angeles is explicitly excluded from being an "aircraft carrier" because it has no indoor storage or servicing capabilities. Can anybody produce an authoritative reference to the contrary? If not, then the choice is either to rename this article or to confine it to genuine aircraft carriers. FYI, as far as I know the only two that ever flew were the ZRS-4 and -5, better known as the US airships Akron and Macon. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article title is still good. But those other dirigibles are now relegated to the development steps along the way , and the Imperial Airship Scheme with 200 troops or 5 aircraft an unaccomplished dream. Though whether such a strict definition as internal storage and maintenance is required or are we mapping the naval carrier discussions onto a distinctly different medium with its own particular limitations? GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:41, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No cross-mapping between topics is intended. The timing is pure coincidence: I started this discussion here over a year ago and, while it might have seemed like it at the time, the other discussion did not actually last that long! I only bought the book I quote above a couple of days ago, and for quite other reasons. Indoor storage and servicing is just my interpretation of "hangar". — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:38, 5 October 2013 (UTC) October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies if my comment implied any reproach - not my intention. On the one hand I was thinking that relatively speaking the space and weight for a hangar is easy to achieve on a ship compared to a dirigible where every pound counts. Also that while aircraft on a ship (or submarine) need a hangar to protect them from the elements, this is less of a requirement for an airship. I was sort of asking are we looking at something similar to the amphibious assault carrier/fleet carrier situation where opinions in sources may differ as to what they include under a heading but none seem to specifically say "X is not an aircraft carrier". I have found this talks of the R33 as a carrier, while this speculates in general on the general subject. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No apology necessary, I took your comment at face value and felt it useful to explain where I was coming from. Thank you for those references. One of them calls the R33, underslung with a couple of planes, an aircraft carrier, while the other contrasts just such an arrangement with an "aircraft carrier" - in this case assumed to be a ship. Both from the same august journal, too. Yep, it looks like we are back with the same dilemma. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:43, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Autumn 2014 comments moved to new section below on Drone motherships. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:54, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To launch or not to launch

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The cooked-up title, "Airborne carrier aircraft", is inclusive of any aircraft that carries another, whether or not it may be released in flight - i.e. it includes ferry flights.

Either way we have a problem:

  • If this article is intended to exclude ferry-only aircraft, then it is merely duplicating Mother ship and should be merged.
  • Or, if this article is intended to match its title then it needs to cover ferry craft as well.

Which is it to be? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk)

I think it should only include aircraft that launches aircraft while airborne. Though how this duplicates mothership I don't see, since mothership includes seaborne watercraft that carries seaborne watercraft, clearly this is a subtopic. 70.49.124.225 (talk) 06:01, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The current title is actually "airborne aircraft carrier" which does imply launch/recovery. This article and parasite aircraft should be merged into composite aircraft. DexDor (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merging with composite aircraft seems like a nice solution. 70.49.124.225 (talk) 04:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
B-52 dropping the X-43

I like the meat of that suggestion. However I also think there is another issue here. Carrying a small craft under the wing of say a B-52 and dropping it at altitude is not generally described as a "composite" - it's just a launch aircraft with a paticular payload today. So rather than merge this article wholesale into composite aircraft, I'd suggest that parts of it go into the Launch aircraft page, which is currently a redirect to mother ship. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or it could go in Air launch - let's not add any more articles to this muddle. DexDor (talk) 16:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's even better. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:25, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wary of merging with composite aircraft because that's more two aircraft working together to form something more than the sum of its parts as opposed to the planned airship aircraft carriers which were meant to be something like aerial versions of the ships. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:33, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't "launch aircraft" redirect to "air launch" ? 70.24.251.208 (talk) 04:22, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It does now :-) — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Drone motherships

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Initial comments moved from discussion of Article title above.

Rename to Airship Aircraft Carrier please. Hcobb (talk) 18:51, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not with that capitalization. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The content has been heavily refactored since the initial discussion. If we were to move the Akron/Macon and other airship projects, what would we do with the section on Airborne aircraft carriers in fiction, many of which are not airships? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:32, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
WRT drone motherships, these are not "aircraft carriers" in the sense cited here, rather they are carrier aircraft and belong in articles such as mother ship and/or air launch. The fact that they are not airships is not really relevant. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:39, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Steel, I wasn't trying to say the article was only about airships, only that they the drone mother ships are not aircraft carriers of that type. I did suggest in my summary that it could be added to Mother ship, but HC went off in a different direction. - BilCat (talk) 21:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. There seemed to be a certain amount of commenting at cross-purposes, so I thought a bit of clarification was worthwhile.— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:21, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Headlines like The Pentagon wants an airborne aircraft carrier to launch drones certainly don't help, with the article comparing SHIELD's flying carrier to the drone carrying aircraft proposal. - BilCat (talk) 22:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am beginning to wonder whether drone motherships might in fact be airborne aircraft carriers within the definition used here. Although the drones are unmanned, the mother ship would retrieve as well as launch them. Would the mother ship be able to refuel and possibly rearm them or carry out simple maintenance? Where should we draw the dividing line? It will be a right PITA to deal with until enough actual designs are described in enough RS to clarify matters.
As a starting suggestion, I would note that we presently do not regard retrieval as sufficient, e.g. a FICON trapeze does not turn the carrier aircraft into an airborne aircraft carrier. Given the size and sophistication of modern drones, the lack of a pilot seems insignificant - a modern drone is a full-blown, if rather small, aircraft. A seaborne aircraft carrier is capable at the very least of refuelling and basic servicing between flights. Does anyone know whether all such ships have had internal hangars, or have some relied on deck storage? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:54, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Carrier aircraft and aircraft carriers

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There has recently been some editing at cross-purposes, with opinions differing as to whether any carrier aircraft capable of launching a parasite or jockey craft should be included in this article.

As currently defined and referenced in the lead, an "aircraft carrier" is a more comprehensive beast than a "carrier aircraft", with additional capabilities to recover and support the smaller craft. Another editor in the above discussions produced a couple of lightweight mentions from Flight, one of which supports that view and the other goes against.

I do think this needs to be evidence-based and that if any change is to be made, it needs to be supported by appropriate citations. Indeed, it needs to reflect the sources cited and, more subtly, their individual reliability.

On a more basic level, images need to be relevant to the text.

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstand. We are disagreeing. A "carrier aircraft" is NOT the same thing as an "aircraft carrier". The craft in the disputed images do NOT have this capability, you need to stop restoring them. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:15, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Those sources comprise; a French web site http://aerostories.free.fr , and a Russian book dating from 1938 and virtually unobtainable in any English-speaking country. Even if it were and someone could read it, one can hardly regard any historical treatise published under the Soviet regime as reliable. The Aerostories article text begins with "porte-avions" (aircraft carrier), then changes to "avion-mère" (mother ship), while the image captions uses "avion porteur" (carrier aircraft). But how reliable is it? And how authoritative? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:10, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Your link is to a search for Zveno-5. That is not at issue, we know Zveno flew. When I search on Zveno aircraft carrier I do not find the phrase "aircraft carrier", only "carrier aircraft":[2]. This does not support your case. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:25, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So a F-35C launching from a CVN to recover a UAV would be carrier aircraft or an aircraft carrier? Hcobb (talk) 18:27, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, well, if "Wikipedia operates with meaning" then neither the F-35C nor the Zveno is what the rest of this article means by an airborne aircraft carrier. Case closed by your own admission. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 22:55, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
An aside - are we meant to leave links to copyright infringing sites (I assume the Russian source is copyright) on talk pages? I know within the article itself it is verboten. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:46, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I should have thought of that. No, we cannot leave them up anywhere. We should delete urls to copyvio pages wherever we find them. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:52, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Time to throw some wikipedia policy (WP:POLICY) at this. @Мехтех: - you are edit warring (WP:WAR) over your addition of the Zveno to the article. You need to stop warring, or sanctions may be applied to your user account. The Bold-Revert-Discuss cycle (WP:BRD) explains what we need to do: you were Bold in adding the Zveno, I then Reverted your edit, so we now need to Discuss it and gain a consensus (WP:CONSENSUS) before you can restore it. If you ignore BRD and consensus by restoring your edit again then you are edit warring and this is not allowed. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:21, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And Zveno project is not an "aircraft carrier" as defined here but only a "carrier aircraft". Not Zveno-1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, none of them. I reject these sources because: a) WP:RS tells me that they are not reliable and b) because most do not say "aircraft" carrier" but only "carrier aircraft", and that completely changes the meaning of the words. This is not just my opinion, it is consensus achieved through prior discussion with other editors and supported by reliable citation. Zveno belongs at Mother ship and Zveno project, but not here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:25, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think you've misread the bit on Academic consensus, that's about summarizing general academic opinion on a subject. The question is editorial consensus here. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:04, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
GraemeLeggett is correct. WP:RS/AC applies to statements about scientific opinion made in articles, not to statements in support of editorial consensus made on talk pages. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:05, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A few comments: 1) According to Bill Gunston's The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875–1995 the Zveno-5 (or Zvyeno-5) did demonstrate successful recovery and release of a Grigorovich I-Z ,on 23 March 1935, with an article by Bill Green and William Swanborough in Air Enthusiast Nineteen agreeing. 2) Shavrov (I assume Мехтех is referring to Vadim Borisovich Shavrov) is very much a WP:RS although an old one (and clearly pre-Glasnost). As well as being an important designer of aircraft, Gunston describes Shavrov as being "By far (the) most important historian of Soviet Aircraft".Nigel Ish (talk) 00:37, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for confirming the source. While recovery did occur, that is not the criterion for inclusion here: this article does not include FICON either. Like FICON, Zveno never provided any kind of support such as refueling, rearming or letting the pilot climb out and take a break. Further, no evidence has been offered that Shavrov used a term meaning "aircraft carrier" as distinct from "carrier aircraft." — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:51, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The XF-85 Goblin

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Should the XF-85 Goblin be added to this page? I tried to add it before, but the edit was removed with the explanation that the system was "not a carrier, only a mothership parasite." However, the intent was for each B-36 bomber to carry, launch, and recover as many as four XF-85s, in a manner very similar to the airship experiments in the 1930s. According to Bill Gunston's 1975 Airplane Monthly article "Parasitic Protectors", there were plans to equip operational XF-85-carrying B-36s with refueling and rearming systems for their fighters, which would make them true airborne aircraft carriers. Obviously this never happened, but since we have the CL-1201 in this article, which was never even built, I think it only fair to cover the XF-85.

The Lockheed superbomber has a cited source, the recent section on the XF-35 a) did not and b) was focused on the payload craft not its carrier. If you write a sentence or two summarising Gunston's material from the viewpoint of the B-36 carrier, with particular note of the provisions for refueling and rearming, and add a citation (including the issue and page numbers for the article), it would be less likely to be deleted. I must apologise if we seem a bit abrupt here sometimes, but this article does get a lot of fanboy rubbish dumped on it and content without proper citations usually fails to measure up. If you need a hand with formatting the citation, drop it here and someone like me will see what we can do.— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:46, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No apology necessary. I'll try that--but first I'm going to have to try to dig up the source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.154.63.69 (talk) 06:01, 29 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's not some kind of "fanboy" mystery. The B-36 was originally designed to carry a manned fighter aircraft. That's no different than the airships. It never went into service because flight testing of the XF-85 revealed that it was a lousy fighter and not worth the weight to carry it. But the B-36 still had provisions for the fighter right up until nearly the end of production. If you need a source, you could pick almost any of them from the wikipedia page on the XF-85. https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin98.232.40.141 (talk) 06:58, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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Superfortress, Stratofortress and Peacemaker

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Should the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and Convair B-36 Peacemaker be included? They too functioned as flying carriers: a variant of the superfortress, EB-29, was designed to carry the Goblin, the Thunderjet and even the Bell X-1. The peacemaker too was designed to host the two aforementioned fighters (along with a third kind called the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak), and the Stratofortress was known to carry the Lockheed D-21 drone (which was also carried on the Lockheed A-12) and the North American X-15 rocket-plane. Just a suggestion.184.186.4.209 (talk) 00:17, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Those are examples of mother ships, and they either carried one or two parasite aircraft, or served to launch a smaller aircraft or rocket. An airborne aircraft carrier is another type of mother ship, with the primary difference being the amount of aircraft carried, usually 4-5, and the ability to service the parasite aircraft on board. - BilCat (talk) 23:39, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DARPA's "Gremlins"

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Aside from the fact that the aircraft in question are unmanned, the "Gremlin" parasite drone project being pursued by DARPA may qualify by the standards of this article. Unlike most examples of air-recovered drones (which were simply snatched out of the air by a modified transport plane and returned to the ground to be prepared for another launch), the "Gremlins" are designed to be refueled and repaired on board their carrier aircraft. They are also designed to be launched and recovered multiple times in a single sortie. In other words, their operational profile resembles that of the Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.224.66.196 (talk) 14:56, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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