This is not a naval-themed post, but this really reminds me of something you'd see in Dystopian Wars or some other tabletop wargame.
So this weekend, my better half and I took a road trip through Nebraska and a bit of Iowa. I managed to convince her to stop for an hour at the
Strategic Air and Space Museum, an aviation museum outside Omaha dedicated to the Strategic Air Command. Being a big fan of Cold War history, this museum was right up my alley.
One of the aircraft present in the museum was the XF-85 Goblin, a so-called "parasite fighter".
The idea behind the XF-85 was to load it into the bomb bay of a strategic bomber, and deploy it if a fighter escort was needed during a bombing mission--as some missions would take place far from the friendly fighter umbrella.
No...I'm
not making this up.
Apparently, the idea was scrapped during the experimental phase. A few of the aircraft were built, and the deployment and recovery system was tested (almost identical to the "trapeze" equipment used to launch and deploy P-36 fighters from U.S. Navy zeppelins before WW2), but it was determined to be far too difficult to launch and recover the aircraft, so the idea was scrapped.
Here are a couple videos showing the process:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TvmwfoyIZLQhttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g46q-RUkAmcYou really can't make this stuff up!