DARPA Wants Flying Drone Carriers

Over the past 20 years or so the face of war has changed. Where big guns once faced up against big armor in battles of technological prowess, most wars today are asymmetric skirmishes where drones, covert ops and strategic strikes are chosen over flying fortresses and carpet bombing. To keep up with the change in tactics, DARPA is looking for ways to retrofit hulking bombers into something a little more adaptable: flying aircraft carriers capable of launching drones.

A fleet of specialized drones working in concert can possibly do much more (and cost much less if one craft is shot down) than a fully decked-out warplane. But drones don't have the range or flight time of full-sized airplanes, says io9. Those limits have led to a search for a flying drone launcher. So, DARPA is hoping to hoping to take big bombers like the B-52, C-130 or B-1—airplanes designed for the Cold War era—and give them a new role, says io9.

Outside of launching drones, however, the idea of a flying aircraft carrier is beyond the scope of anything even close to modern technology, says Popular Science. To build a full-sized flying aircraft carrier capable of launching full-sized jets would require a ship powered by the equivalent of 70 Space Shuttle rocket boosters. 

Colin Schultz | | READ MORE

Colin Schultz is a freelance science writer and editor based in Toronto, Canada. He blogs for Smart News and contributes to the American Geophysical Union. He has a B.Sc. in physical science and philosophy, and a M.A. in journalism.