Airborne Aircraft Carrier - Television Tropes & Idioms

Captain Frankie's RAF carrier in Sky Captain.

"Behold my floating masterpiece, the Egg Carrier!"

Dr. Ivo Robotnik, Sonic Adventure

"My, who would've imagined a floating aircraft carrier?"

Lloyd Asplund, Code Geass

Flight has always fascinated humanity. First came legends of Winged Humanoids and Floating Continents, then actual airplanes and later zeppelins. When the aircraft carrier was invented, its sheer awesome (and force projection) made the battleship a military relic. Considering this, is it any surprise that people have wanted to combine the awesome of the airplane, aircraft carrier, zeppelin and floating continent into one?

Well, the result of this daydreaming is the Airborne Aircraft Carrier! This is a step above the simple “Boat” most Video Games use to ferry the player around; it is a literal mobile floating fortress and airport, capable of raining Death From Above like few fictional Military Mashup Machines. At its most basic, it serves as a refueling station like an island in the sky; a carrier; add some guns to make it a combination battleship; and if you're into that sort of thing, robot transformations. A similar concept on a smaller scale is the usage of parasite aircraft piggybacking on larger ones.

As listed below, this one was attempted several times in real life. So far, it's only worked once.

Compare to The Battlestar, which is this... IN SPACE! Occasionally part of a Standard Sci Fi Fleet.

Examples

Anime

The Arcus Prima, Messis, and assorted enemy vessels from Simoun.
The Silvana from Last Exile.
- Not to mention every other major battleship in the anime, including the Urbanus and the titular vessel. Not to mention the huge, floating casino in the sky, at which the Silvana docks for some repairs early on in the series.
The titular Macross from Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Not only is it a giant battleship with a Wave Motion Gun, but it serves as a carrier to small fleet of Transforming Mecha, and is itself transformable into its own humanoid form. One of its "arms" was formerly the submersible mecha-landing craft Daedalus. Its other arm was a submersible aircraft carrier, the Prometheus.
- The carrier in Macross Zero was a regular carrier made airborne by alien weirdness, but it still counts.
The Gekko from Eureka Seven, as well as the Izumo and other military vessels.
- This is one of the few series in which doing so made sense beyond the rule of cool, because the surface had no oceans as surface was extremely craggy and convenient particles called trapar that kept them airborne, so there wasn't a fuel problem.
The Imperial Capital in Samurai 7, which is along the same lines as the above, except it doesn't transform.
The Banshee unit from Sentou Yousei Yukikaze.
The Dai-Gunten in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
The Blue Typhoon in Sonic X.
The Avalon in Code Geass. It remains to be seen whether the Ikaruga will take to the skies or not.
- It does.
The Tiger Moth from Castle In The Sky
The Gaw and and Garuda class ships from the Mobile Suit Gundam universe.
- The White Base itself counts when operating on Earth. Same goes for the Argama in Zeta Gundam and the Endra class in Gundam ZZ.
The Iron Wing, from Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals.
Strike Witches has one as the final opponent.

Comic Books

The Helicarriers, iconic headquarters of the spy organization SHIELD in the Marvel Universe.
- The Aeromarine, belonging to SHIELD knock-off/parody organization HATE in Nextwave, probably counts as well, despite appearing to be an airborne submarine. In fact, dozens of submarines welded together. We've yet to determine whether this is cool or not, it could frankly go either way.
The Gull Wing from Gold Digger is so enormous that it isn't able to actually land, and processes clouds for hydrogen to keep its engines running perpetually.
- Of course, in Real Life, the energy needed to separate water into H and O is just slightly more that you'd get from burning them. But try not to worry about it.
  - This troper doesn't know the series in question, but electrolyzing water into hydrogen and oxygen and fusing the hydrogen (giving oxygen and helium as byproducts) will give a net plus to useful energy. Of course, there are a few other issues with this...
  - Perhaps it uses the hydrogen for fusion?
In the GI Joe / Transformers Generation 2 crossover from the early nineties, Slice (a ninja working for Cobra) comments that the Ark (the Autobots' starship) is bigger than an aircraft carrier, but still flying.
In The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, both Fu Manchu and James Moriarty maintain flying battleships and use them for war with one another.

Film

The British in Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow have parlayed their naval supremacy into a literal fleet of Airborne Aircraft Carriers.

Literature

The Dale Brown novel Plan Of Attack features a modified B-52 that carries mini-planes inside. Air Battle Force has modified B-1Bs carrying mini UCA Vs.
In a recent Battle Tech Technical Readout "Technical Readout: Vehicle Annex" a Airship Fighter carrier capable of carrying approximately 6 Fighters was introduced.
Pulp Magazine superspy Operator 5 confronted an Airborne Aircraft Carrier in the 1930's, making this Older Than Television. That Airborne Aircraft Carrier was merely a large platform supported by balloons.
Justin Lieber's TG science fiction novel Beyond Rejection features a large balloon-supported catapult platform known as a 'Raiser'. It's used solely to reduce the amount of energy needed to launch a space shuttle into orbit.

Live Action TV

In Doctor Who, the UNIT carrier Valiant is large enough for Air Force One to land on it — in comparison, real world aircraft carriers barely have enough clearance for their fighters to land safely, with carrier landings being described as "controlled crashes".It also mounts a giant laser cannon

Tabletop Games

Have cropped up now and then in Warhammer 40000 fluff, such as in the Gaunts Ghosts book "The Guns of Tanith".
- The Eldar craftworlds certainly qualify, as they're basically giant spacebourne cities, with their own fleets of fighter, support, and transport ships.
This troper was DM'ing his first game, set in a Indiana Jones-style pulp universe. He announced that the Big Bad's recently revealed giant zeppelin base was eight times larger than the Hindenberg, a number picked completely at random. His History-degree-wielding players then pointed out that the Hindenberg was over 800 ft long. He paused, said "F*ck it, it stays!", thus giving the Nazis a 1.21 MILE-LONG DEATH BALLOON.
- Wow, you topped Palpatine and Darth vader by making yours longer than a Star Destroyer...and in the atmosphere!
In the Mystara setting for Dungeons & Dragons, the Flying City of Serraine is a mobile airborne city-state with its own Magitek air force, the Top Ballista squadrons. Skygnome-built versions of WWI-era fighter planes launch from the airstrip mounted along the edge of the city, kept aloft by fantasy physics, tactically supported by winged centaurs and venom-clawed monkeys, and occasionally imperiled by gremlin saboteurs. Yep, Mystara is a weird freakin' place.

Video Games

The protagonist spends some time on a skyship such as this in Gauntlet Dark Legacy's Sky Dominion world.
Alpha Centauri has this disabled by default, but by switching a certain 0 to a 1 in the "alpha.txt" file, you can add the Carrier Deck to aircraft.
Supreme Commander has the Czar, the Aeon flying saucer ripoff of the larger ships from Independence Day, complete with Wave Motion Gun.
In Jak and Daxter 3, the Krimzon bots have a gigantic floating war factory that can pump out several full sized tanks and UA Vs whenever needed.
The go-anywhere Submarine from Xenogears. It starts out as a land-sub capable of traveling below the desert... then becomes able to sail underwater... and fly... and transform into a gigantic energy-cannon for a city-fortress turned Humongous Mecha. Rather than aircraft, it can launch giant robots (Gears).
Too many shoot-'em-ups to count. Many are airborne aircraft carriers that transport your player ship(s) to the war zone, others are Boss Fights:
- All of the Raiden games.
- The Tetra in Radiant Silvergun.
- The Sword of Acala and the flying Fortress Misago in Ikaruga.
Dr. Robotnik's massive Egg Carrier from Sonic Adventure. Armed with missile launchers, a fleet of robotic jet fighters, laser cannons (tons of these damn things in Sky Deck), robot staff, transformation capabilities, and to top it all off, a Wave Motion Gun. He has a second one in reserve, and in Sonic Heroes, he really ups the ante with an entire friggin' fleet, with the flagship being at least as twice as big as the original Egg Carrier, and twice as armed.
- It even has it's own pool.
- Don't forget the Egg Carrier's predecessors, Wing Fortress (Sonic 2) and Flying Battery (Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles). The Doc loves his Airborne Aircraft Carriers almost as much as his Death Star clones.
- This goes as far back as the original Sonic 1 for the Game Gear and Master System with Sky Base Zone.
- G.U.N. evidently has its own air/space fleet, seen in Shadow the Hedgehog.
The Ace Combat combat flight sim series usually features at least one airborne carrier per game; however, Ace Combat 5 subverts this twice. First, the huge, scary aircraft is not a carrier, but a next-generation space-shuttle/orbital platform that will probably have an equivalent in reality this century. Second, the large implausible aircraft carriers are oversized submarines instead of aircraft. Ace Combat 6 plays it straight with Estovakia's kilometer-wide Aigaion air-carrier, which takes it a step further by having its own airborne fleet for anti-air defense and electronics warfare.
- Also, the UI4053 from Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere.
- Don't forget the Hresvelgr from Ace Combat Zero.
  - The UI-4053 Sphyrna counts, but the Hresvelgr doesn't; it's just a supermassive bomber.
Nearly all Zeppelins in the Crimson Skies series also serve as aircraft carriers, most notably Pandora, Nathan Zachary's flagship.
True to its Independence Day homage roots, the Aeon's experimental saucer from Supreme Commander does both this and packs a core-based death beam. The downside is it's rather fragile, and relies a great deal on its flying complement to protect it and draw fire.
Battlefield 2142 has Titans, flying bases that are the center of a certain gamemode. The goal is to bring the enemy Titan down either by missiles launched from silos on the ground, or by invading it and destroying vital elements.
The Protoss in Star Craft have Carriers, which can maintain a fleet of Interceptor ships which are used to attack both ground and air units. The Carriers, however, break the pattern ever so slightly by only launching miniscule unmanned ships, visibly smaller than a single-man fighter.
The Halberd from the Kirby series, which makes a return both as a stage and a plot element in Super Smash Bros Brawl.
The Scrin Planetary Assault Carrier from Command And Conquer should count, though in its case its literally nothing more than an engine, a control system, and a long, narrow span connecting the two that is lines with dozens of drone fighters that swarm over anything they see. Powerful enough that it can almost challenge the Tiberium Wars Game Breaker, the GDI Mammoth Tank.
- It actually has a rather good attack of its own, but most people overlook it. The thing can create an Ion Storm around it, giving it an immediate-area attack field. The storm also buffs up any other Scrin aircraft around it. The Mammoth stands no chance.
Most of the battleships from Super Robot Wars house small hordes of Humongous Mecha as well as a few fighters, and at least one is secretly a Transforming Mecha itself.
Little-known game Project Nomads has you flying about in a small gravity-defying mass of land on which you can build hangars that, in turn, build and deploy small fighters. The fighters can be controlled by yourself or left to their own devices, but it's wiser to take control because otherwise they tend to charge headlong into massed defense fire.
In Final Fantasy XII, the Bahamut as well as the heavy carrier class airships (such as the Leviathan) use these as well. The Bahamut deploys Valefor-class fighters as a means of offense against Resistance forces while the Mist cannon is charging, and heavy cruisers often deploy, among other things, Atomos-class transport ships, as well as the aforementioned Valefor-class on the Archadian side, unnamed fighters on the Resistance side.
Town Ship in Breath Of Fire II suports a whole flying town.
The Flying Krock from Donkey Kong Country 2.
In Blazing Angels 2, The Final Boss is Project-C, a shielded(!), World War Two era(!!), Airborne Aircraft Carrier.
The Great Fox in Star Fox is a rather moderately sized version of this, holding only about six vehicles at most. In one mission in Star Fox 64, you can even enter it for repairs. Some bosses are also able of launching smaller ships aswell as missiles, such as the Assault Carrier.
In Skies Of Arcadia, Galcian's flagship the Hydra is one of these.
Baten Kaitos Origins takes this to a whole new level: the final dungeon is a flying fortress that was described as being the size of a continent. Granted, the continents in this game aren't extraordinarly large as they are all floating chunks of land, but still... a CONTINENT!
- Kinda makes you wonder from WHERE did all the material for it came, though, if it's as big as a continent...
Sci-fi flight sim Echelon has both flying aircraft carriers and the standard watery sort. The flying type is equipped with significant anti-aircraft defenses and is usually defended by flying destroyers as well. Somewhat interesting is that these ships fly at low altitudes, and several missions have them assist in the destruction of ground targets.

Webcomics

In Girl Genius, Baron Wulfenbach has a fleet of dirigible fortresses and assorted lighter-than-air craft as his mobile base of operations, including the enormous Castle Wulfenbach. Also, most airships have escape pods that are themselves miniature airships.
- Castle Wulfenbach is so large it's practically an Airborne Airborne Aircraft Carrier Carrier.
  - What exactly are we trying to say here?
Some were seen in Alpha Shade.

Western Animation

The Iron Vulture in Disney's Tale Spin.
Spectrum's Cloudbase from the "Super Marionated" show Captain Scarlet, a probable design influence on The Valiant from Doctor Who mentioned above.
- Also, Skybase, from the computer generated reboot.
- Very arguably, the Battlehawk from Anderson's Terrahawks - although in that case, only one vehicle, the Terrahawk, could take off from or land on it, and this troper can't specifically recall any instance where it did so while in flight.
Seen in the Wartime Cartoon "Japoteurs" from the Fleischer Superman theatrical shorts, after a fashion. A giant bomber, larger that anything ever built, carried a number of small, one-man fighter planes aboard, launching then off the top of its fuselage.
Cobra had a Hellicarrier in the GIJoe cartoon series. In turn, it was based off an unused design for the SHIELD Hellicarrier from an abortive Nick Fury cartoon.
Broadside from Transformers, in a way. He transforms into both an aircraft carrier and a jet plane (and the aircraft carrier has been shown to fly). However, his effectiveness is negated as he is afraid of both heights and water-meaning that he's essentially useless.
Thunderbird 2, in Thunderbirds served as a flying carrier for the smaller vehicles that International Rescue used, such as the Mole and Thunderbird 4. Another example appeared in an airshow in one episode-it was a giant aeroplane which could carry another.

Real Life

The USS Macon and the USS Akron. Of course, they also had the dubious distinction of being the last rigid Naval zeppelins, since both of them ended up crashing into the ocean in separate incidents, with the Akron losing all of its crew save two; since the Naval brass that was heavily into airships and such was among the not-two, it's not hard to see how they didn't catch on more.
The USAF was experimenting with using parasite fighters, the XF-85, to provide fighter escort to B-36 bombers. Eventually, this plan was scrapped as the increased range of jet fighters coupled with inflight refueling allowed regular fighters to accompany the bombers throughout their missions, in addition to the fact that the XF-85 was outperformed by conventional fighters.
- FICON (FIghter CONveyor) Project: Putting an F-84 fighter inside the bomb bay of a B-36 and using the former to deliver a tactical nuke. Got a few flights in before the U-2 came on stream and the B-36 became obsolete. Determined to be an idea that worked better in theory than in practice.
Daimler-Benz 'B' project: A giant project by Nazi Germany, composed of a large mothership carrying multiple parasite aircraft; these were to be either manned missiles or remote-guided.
Short Mayo Composite: A British attempt from the interwar years. The idea was long range for transatlantic flights.
Research use: Many experimental aircraft, particularly US X-planes, can't really take off under their own power and must be carried to altitude by a mothership and released. Examples include the X-1 and X-15 rocket planes and the X-24 lifting body. Had the X-20 Dyna-Soar ever been built, a kind of 1960s-era mini-Shuttle, they'd have begun with unmanned drop tests, with the thing carried aloft by a modified B-52.
The Soviets also conducted their own experiments in the 1930s. Tupolev bombers would carry little Polikarpov fighters aloft, the most ~~successful~~ ambitious version actually carrying five fighters at the same time. The divebomber variant has long-range bomber carrying two fighters armed with bombs too heavy for them to take off on their own. These teams flew more than 30 missions, being among the most succesful in Soviet aviation before the project ended in 1942 due to the involved aircraft becoming obsolete. See photo.
A rather dubious example: the Japanese, during their desperate kamikaze attack phase, had designed the 'Ohka' (official designation) rocket-powered plane. It had to be carried aboard a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bomber, since it wasn't designed to either take off or land. Whether this makes the carrying plane a carrier or a missile launcher is up for debate. Some were actually used and sank three of US ships, damaging some others. Most missions either didn't launch them or had them miss. In the latter case, the pilot was just as dead.
- The Americans had a simple reporting name for this one- "Baka".
- Had the Ohka's rocket engine actually achieved the range its creators desired, the American Navy might have had a very different opinion of it. As it was, the unarmored Betties had to fly suicidally close to their targets before they could release and most Ohka were lost when their motherships were shot down.
Aside from Technical issues of building such weapons, It causes major political headaches as unlike the seaborne carriers, you will be advertising a giant aircraft over their airspace. And not to mention the same vulnerabilities of an Aircraft (SAM sites, cruise missiles and perhaps the occasional nuke thrown at your multi-billion dollar weapon)
The Antonov An-225 "Mrija" (NATO reporting name "Cossack"), the biggest aeroplane in history, was designed to be an Airborne Space Shuttle Carrier. It's nowadays used as a cargo jet and acquired 240 world records. A second is being completed.
NASA had a Boeing 747 carry the first Space Shuttle "test article" (a prototype orbiter, not meant for actual spaceflight) up to high altitude, where they let the thing go for gliding and landing tests. The aircraft is still in service today; if the orbiter lands someplace other than Kennedy Spaceflight Center (see also: Edwards AFB, White Sands, bunches of trans-Atlantic abort sites), the 747 ferries it back.
- This is the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), and there are actually two of them now. They've also been used to ferry the Enterprise (the "test article" orbiter mentioned above) to airshows, and to ferry orbiters back to California for their every-few-years maintenance/refurbishment/upgrade cycle.