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Now, we need a large airborne plane carrier.
I can't say with certainty just off the top of my head, but I feel like the U.S thought about that for a minute.
I feel like WW2? I could also be confusing bits from an old History Channel documentary.
They're called parasite fighters, and just about everyone has had a go at them at some point.
The Goblin was the last serious attempt.
The US built the XF-85 goblin parasite fighter, which was supposed to be deployed using a robotic arm from the bomb bay of a B-36. The idea came from ww2 when we had escort fighters for most major bombing missions to keep the bombers safe.
It wasn’t practical to build a fighter with enough range to escort strategic bombers into the Soviet Union so they thought, “why not carry the fighter inside the bomber?”
We also tried to do parasite fighters off a dirigible, but it turned out they were finicky and the carrier was too big and obvious a target.
There have been a few, some didn't leave the drawing board, others actually got made.
Here's a couple of the top of my head. I don't know much about them, just what Ive seen from these videos.
Soviet aircraft carrier American aircraft carrier What ever happened to flying aircraft carriers?