aerial UAV control a/c - any daft ideas?

[Howard of Effingham]

thanks everyone for a whole raft of interesting ideas!

one of the reasons why i have suggested a larger a/c is that i was wondering what
happens if say the satellite control link fails mid mission and it takes too long
to re-establish the link. also i thought that given these UAV's are effectively picking
up real-time intelligence of various kinds and by various sensors a suitable large jet
would be an ideal command and control platform, thinking awacs here see of a fashion.

i agree mossie about the 3 gnats under a vulcan as this is partly the way i was thinking, 
as such an a/c could carry drones and control them from the air. 'fraid to say that it would
be rather too tough squeezing a gnat sized RPV under a victor even as a model concept.

elmayerle's idea about a DF-20B is a good shout too as i know that there were a number of
DF-8's and leans me towards a DF-5F or a DF-16B.

the last thing that i will say for now is folk will recall the USD-501 drone, now i can see LOTS
of those fitted under a vulcan, perhaps being used to gather some last minute targeting gen
if the cold war ever turned really rather hot, in the late 1970's, or maybe one of those family
of RPV's that were used in vietnam and under DC-130's. which i recall italeri kitted at least
once after they brought out their C-130E/H. 

[Shasper]

Bring back the DC-130s then, or better yet, DC-17s You could use a converted airliner as well (Got a 707 tanker/airborne UAV control station bird built a few yrs ago )

Shas

[NARSES2]

Taking this idea back a liitle in time ------ Some of you may know that in WWI the allies were working on using pilotless aircraft as flying bombs to attack heavily defended area targets behind the lines. The surviving Wright brother was working on the project mainly using gyroscopicaly controlled small aircraft to deliver the explosive, although some work was done on early radio control. There is a suprising amout of film footage of these trials and if the war had continued there is no reason to asume that this method would not have been used against large rail-heads etc behind the lines.

Anyway you could have large Airships being used as both launch and control motherships ? Some of the larger bombers could also be used as mid point control aircraft to keep the swarms of drones on track ?

Just shows, no ideas are realy new, just the technology improves enough to make them practicable ?