The Soviet Flying Aircraft Carrier
Complete with fighters based in a “mothership"
The 1930s saw an explosion of aircraft carrier technology. As navy strategists were coming to grips with the paradigm shift in war on the sea, so too were air strategists trying to come up with a flying equivalent. The forward thinking planners knew that air power was going to be the weapons platform of the future.
The result were a series of experimental flying carriers with the ability to dispense fighters from a larger mothership. The system with the best results was the Zveno Project which was pioneered by the Soviet Union. The Zveno flying aircraft carrier hoisted laden fighters aloft and flew them to their destination, the planes would then detach near the target and fly in far beyond the range of a typical fighter-bomber. The result was the ability to hit targets far outside the normal range of an airfield which increased air power projection. It was the same ideas that were fueling the rise of floating aircraft carriers at the same time.
Benefits of a flying aircraft carrier
