Parasite Fighters and Carriers

[dy031101]

Jschmus pointed to a webpage that mentioned a 747-based flying carrier with a complement of 10 parasite "microfighters"; a seperate AEW version of the carrier (which can carry two recce-configured microfighters) was also drawn up.

What if we combine the two together by using...... say, a blended wing body design or zwillinged 747?  Um...... 

[Weaver]

It's always struck me that the way to do parasite launch is by "towing". The carrier has a device like a very much stronger air-refuelling hose with a basket on the end, and the fighter has a stong probe on it's nose that can lock into it.

For launch, the fighter is lightly pushed out of the back of the carrier, not attached to the cable. For recovery, the cable is trailed and the fighter locks onto it, just like in air-refuelling, way behind the turbulence arouns the carrier. Then once it's locked on, it shuts it's engine down and is reeled in. For "old tech" implementations of this, the fighter pilot still flies his craft to contact. For a "modern" implementation, the cable contains a data line that connects the fighter's flight control system to the carrier's, allowing the latter to "fly" it to contact automatically, with feedback from it's own air-data system and turbulence sensors.

Of course, the carrier has to be specially designed with a collision avoiding back end design and there are some "interesting" CofG issues to resolve as well. I could see the carrier being a tandem-wing design because they have a large CofG range.

Towing, but not "reeling in" was demonstrated for real by a the Eclipse program at NASA Dryden, using an F-106 towed behind a C-141, in the context of a "tow-to-altitude" space-launcher concept:


http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-049-DFRC.html

http://www.f-106deltadart.com/eclipse.htm

[dy031101]

With progress in technologies associated with aircraft ordnances, the Boeing Microfighter should be able to have been afforded good firepowers at this day and age: ASRAAMs in wing root launchers, MICAs or SDBs under the wing pylons......

[Henry Yeh]

Problem with microfighters is that they're too small for the complex tasks associated with lengthy power projection deployments.
A less ambitious & more practical goal would be long-range air defense patrol over remote Siberia or escorting Tu-142 over the Atlantic. The duration would be less than power projection, hence the fighters need not to be stored & re-armed internally. This would allow larger (& more capable) fighters to be carried. While the pilots might not be able to get off their mounts, it's still less tiring than flying the fighters themselves for 10 hours straight & constantly being refuelled. Uses less fuel too.
4 MiG-21 would be reallistic for an An-124. The "mothership" could also double as AWACS & mobile SAM site (armed with R-33/37 AAM).