To me the likeliest reason something like this was never done was that half the reasons you might do it vanished with the advent of aerial refuelling and the rest are accounted for by strategic bombers with ALCMs

"in a world where Bezos invests in a sky carrier" me getting flashbacks to Max0r's Ace Combat 7 summary

“That’s all they’ve really been. A concept” USS Akron and USS Macon: *Am I a joke to you?*

I love messier 82 basically the reason why Ill be studying aviation/aerospace engineering soon.

00:30 well, not really, the USSR tested and later used flying aircraft carriers (or at least one TB-3 that was modified to be a "mothersship") in 30 missions, with only 3 parasite fighter (Polikarpov I-16) was lost in combat. Their first real mission was to bomb a bridge in Romania which they did smoothly due to the enemy not minding the I-16s since it's a small fighter and they doesn't have that much of a range and their bombload is nothing huge or simply they just failed to identify them as enemy, that is a mistery. In fact those I-16s couldn't have even take of with the massive bomb they got during that mission so it was really practical to launch them from a moving flying platform. This doesn't mean that they are viable though, the TB-3S were only used there since no other plane was available during that time (or bomber, can't remember) so they used the otherwise outdated bombers-turned-experimental-failures into something useful. Very rare Soviet ingeniuity right there (Those who are curious search for the 'Zveno project', I recommend Mustard's video on it but there are a lot of videos out there so pick your poison 😊)

It's funny that you mention the Arsenal Bird, the ACE Combat 7 drone mothership, but not ACE Combat 6's actual flying aircraft carrier/cruise missile platform, the P-1112 Aigaion. I think they did a good job of making it seem feasible, they mentioned how it was so big it was built on and took off from the ocean, and while it can land in the ocean it instead is kept continually in the air, used as their main "Heavy Command Cruiser" and they even show it being refueled by 6 DC10 tankers, which really puts its scale into perspective. They even took it a step further and had it be escorted like an actual aircraft carrier, always being accompanied by 4 smaller but still absolutely massive (I believe) drone gunships ,of which there were two different models of, I recall one specializing in missiles and electronic warfare, and the other just having turrets all over it. 100% By far my favorite example of the flying aircraft carrier concept.

8:31 that sounds absolutely horrifying, I love it

Flying aircraft carriers are really cool, have you heard of the Russian 'Zveno' project from the 1930's. it ended up flying around 30 mission in active combat during WW2, and was surprisingly successful, despite being quite outdated. I just finished making a Kalinin K-7 Replica which carries deployable, and one controllable strike fighter(s)

That looks like one of the flying battleships from Project Wingman, which is something you might be interested in!

Flying dronecarriers I can see, but other than that is beyond practical.

2 more very valid reasons as to why areal Carriers are not becomming a thing. To take a significant number of aircraft, they need to be significantly large. And while the sky maybe near limitless for space, the ground where such an aircraft must take off from certainty is not. And if that was not an issue, then you now have defend an airport the size of (insert obscenely large number beyond comprehension here) from enemy attack, all for some advantages you can do already at a larger and/or smaller scale, and some advantages you can honestly do without.

I mean tbf. DARPA did put a contract out for large non ground effect restricted Ekranoplans recently. So maybe not far off even if "Move entire battalions across an ocean in a few hours" isn't as flashy as a flying aircraft carrier.

Nuclear powered aircraft are all fun and games until you find yourself looking at Fukushima screaming out of the sky at 800mph.

The shear power of those engines at takeoff would rip anything behind them to particles if not fine sand... I love it.. ❤❤❤

An orbital weapons platform would be cheaper and more reliable. 22 minutes to strike anywhere on Earth.

honestly, the question of "why" a flying aircraft carrier never really occurred to me. This kind of thing feels like its own reward for my all-i-know-about-war-is-videogames brain

F = Fighter. C = Cargo.. It should have been the KC-01 Kraken, or the KCV-01 Kraken. K for refueler/tanker. CV for carrier. CVN for a nuclear carrier.

"Impractical" creations like this always have me imagining that in parallel timelines with different histories of technology & economic production all the proud adults-in-the-room are balking at the concept of like skyscrapers or hydroelectric dams while riding in giant airships.

tbh you were the main reason i got into flyout, thanks man

the radar dome's placement is a bit unrealistic, due to the size of the wings it would almost completely be blocked from looking down, which is a problem when this aircraft would have to be scanning well past the local curvature of the Earth. More likely a flying carrier of this size would have multiple phased array antennas across the leading edges of the wings, in the nose, and in the tail or in the wingtips so that it can have a 270 degree or greater radar arc around the aircraft.

Messier you can control the plane with thrust vectoring engines, but that means moving the main plane as well

Suggestions rotating radar is out of date fixed pod is in. Internal aircraft storage is a must for drag and operation maintenance and Stealth. A fat flying wing like a b2 seems a more useful shape. One of the newer reactor designs like molten salt and others may be lighter and not need as much shielding. possible direct electricity production to electric motors. AI injoyed your work

Another potential reason for this one specifically: it'd be very difficult to convince the international community that this thing isn't just a cover for developing nuclear ICBMs.

Have you looked into the parasite fighters used by the soviet union in ww2? the carrier was used to extend the range and payload capacity of the fighters. While the range issue is solved with aerial refueling, the payload increase is an interesting idea. I think Mustard has a good video on it.

This has a very Miyhazaki look... Like some of the flying monsters from Nausicaa or Future Boy Conan. love it

an ejection plane instead of a seat would be hilarious

"Drone defense! Hold my beer!" said the hacker...

Other issues would be wingtip vortexes and prop wash (turbulent air caused by generating lift and thrust). Landing a small aircraft on a larger aircraft would be extremely difficult. This issue could be solved by using lighter than air aircraft. But to do that the size would grow to even more insane proportions, and the speed would slow to a crawl.

I'd really like to see M82 do a size-ordered lineup of all of his crafts, probably via photoshop or something, just so we can get a true perspective of the dimensions of all his aircraft.

Hey Messier, loving your videos! I was wondering if you would consider doing an "improved he 162" build/challenge. Where, with the power of hindsight, you would design the best possible version of the he 162, with the same engine or another engine that was available in Germany at the time of the 162's creation. This aircraft would have to be simple and cheap to produce, as that was most of the point of the 162. Thanks and keep up with the great content!

Something potentially more realistically done in real world is the new types of zepplins/blimps they are making for hauling cargo long term albeit at slower rates than normal planes. Make them big enough, and they can carry basically any load anywhere on the earth without much issue.

When I saw the Arsenal Bird in Ace Combat, I thought it was cool but I also thought how stupid it was because of it's size. I like speed and streamline designs, big looks cool but I would get frustrated quickly and cost is another factor. That's my thoughts on flying carriers. Big, Slow and vulnerable.

That thing sounded like a lawnmower on a time lapse doing a drive-by, that was awesome sounding in the weirdest kind of way

Where have you been all my life!!? As a diehard Ace Combat/Macross/General flying machine and other flying stuff, this channel is truly a blessing. Aw man, this is the kind of channel (if I have money) I'd be a member of. For now I'd just watch and liked every videos you make. Also, reality is a cruel mistress, how boring a technically possible sky carrier be, but it's life and loving it!

Dude thank you, thank you, thank you yet again for never creasing to amaze. Im soo glad youve been doing more flyout content again. I love your overly detailed explanations and designs and im hinestly one of your biggest fans 🔥🔥🔥🙏🏾

Can't say about real life, but it fit perfectly in GI JOE's universe. Cheers!

"CAPTAIN WERE CRASHING" "oh lets drink our last glass of whiskey then" "man this beats dying"

Your videos are relaxing❤

i love the AWACS radome-dish on the top

The concept is now reality! Well in a sense, The C-130 is able to launch and recover The X-61 Gremlin ;)

I'm so happy I found your absolute gem of a channel! I think my absolute favorite fictional plane of yours is the supersonic turboprop plane, but this also looks really cool!

Love watching your videos and the design of your aircraft nice job

What i wouldn't mind to se is a large Aerial Warship, that just carries a lot of VLS Cells, CIWS and maybe some anti ground howitzer

It's not the nuclear propulsion of the carrier itself, nor food stores. It's the refueling of the planes carried on the carrier itself that will limit the flight time of such a plane. The other, even greater problem for an extended flight is water usage. Even the smallest, most streamlined carriers will have a crew supplement between 2000-3000 personnel on board, not to mention the over 6000 on the US supercarriers today. They easily use at least 20 gallons/75 liters of water per person per day. Minimum. And that's being conservative. A waterbound carrier has enough water around it to desalinate it onboard. A flying carrier does not. That means such a carrier gets lighter each day by, again very conservative calculations, at least 2000 * 7.5 liters per day, assuming a full 90% recovery rate of used water, which is an almost unheard of recovery rate. So the flying carrier would loose around 15 tons of water a day, which it can't recover until either a flying support plane brings in that water, or the carrier lands and restocks on the ground. Dito for food supplies. After one month of flying such a carrier would have no more water on board, forcing it to land to allow its crew the required drinking water. So basically a bad idea compounded by nearly impossible logistics.

I played with a nuclear powered spaceplane with a payload of well over a kilotonne. (I don't remember exactly.) I based it on the Star Raker using DUMBO-esk rocket cores. Landing gear was a serious problem! In fact, I found them to be unmanageable. The solution, and you're going to laugh, was to make it a sea-spaceplane. The wing area was large enough that heat shields were not necessary, though active cooling had to be implanted it the hot zones. So, salt corrosion was manageable. Turns out, if you can deploy water wings at take off, much of the complex shape of a sea plane can be eliminated. You don't want to land that way, but it greatly simplifies taking off... IF you have the power. The vehicle required a very long runway. I think it was 5 to 10 km, depending on payload and aerodynamic assumptions, but it was perfectly doable. Bat-sh*t crazy, but doable.

It would be one of the coolest sounding flybys but also one of the most terrifying.

Messier has come such a long way, it’s beautiful

Air carriers will likely never happen, but an orbital carrier potentially could. Power needs become less of an issue as you only need to maintain a stable orbit, and prepped fighters can be dropped from the carrier to complete a mission, then return to a ground base to be boosted back up to the orbit platform along with resupply missions. Definitely a long term option rather than something currently possible, but its more feasible than at atmospheric carrier. Plus it would give the Space Force something to do instead of making memes.

Love the Avro Arrow wing notches 🤘👍

You mention Ace Combat 7, but don't forget about the much more direct Ace Combat 6's "P-1112 Aigaion", the flying stingray guarded by EWS and CAS support flying ships that can carry carrier aircraft and even has the capability to carry powerful cruise missiles.

The arsenal bird and all of Ace Combat are some of my favorite things ever, they should hire you to build the next super weapon haha

The psychological warfare of hearing that thing coming ALONE is severely underrated....want an RC one! Also, how have I not heard of this KSP for adults game yet??????

love your videos, keep up the work.

Imo. Instead of an airborne aircraft carrier, a regular aircraft carrier equipped with a swarm of various drones and commander aircraft allowing for sorties operating anywhere at any time and able to be equipped with any form of ordnance in the form of a drone commanded by a piloted aircraff

Imagine taking the term air fleet a bit more literally.. like that this carrier had a whole group of gigantic aircraft following it: destroyers, frigates, maybe even dreadnoughts

i think my favorite fictional airborne aircraft carriers are the ones from the game highfleet! basically big steel ships kept up by massive jets with the aircraft carriers featuring a decently long runway on the top for aircraft to launch and land from and huge legs like landing gear that means they can just become portable airstrips

Id call it the Jericho due to the horn like sound and the destruction itd bring

“If you hear this, you weren’t the target” So…its basically a giant sci-fi A-10?

If we are going to start talking about putting nuclear reactors on aircraft you might as well just use electric motors for propulsion and the reactor for generating electricity. There is no point in adding another layer of complexity to an already unproven system. Also having the reactor for solely generating power would make for a better self contained system. This modularity would also make refueling or changing the reactor better. It would also make it easier to power the aircraft with a different type of generator if needed. The other major advantage is the reliability of electric motors. You could even potentially have multiple motors connected to a gear drive to power the props, so you could in theory disengage a faulty motor and replace it during flight. This redundancy would be essential for an aircraft meant to stay in the air for weeks or months at a time.

well you did kinda make the arsenal bird, If you switched this concept to the idea of a large plane full of cruise missiles to retain the standoff advantage and response time you could get a much more practical design. I've heard ideas of shoving a bunch of cruise missiles in a B-52 after all

Great video. Subbed...👍

Somehow I doubt you want to shield only the part between the crew and the automated section. I'm not an engineer, but I seem to remember radiations can damage electronics (which are generally very useful for automation, unless you use analogic automatons) And then, you don't really want to shower the people you fly over with sweet radioactive death.

The size of the engine compared to the f35 on the thumbnail is insane. Your videos are awesome m82. I love your planes and am gonna follow suit when I get the game

You should make a supersonic biplane

Please create a flying Gunship Fortress! Something like The B-52, C-5, and or Dreamlifter! Please include at least Two 105mm Cannons/Or perhaps One Larger Cannon of your choice, Three Bofors 40mm Cannons, and Four 30mm Cannons, All Broadside Weapons!! Next short range defense! Essentially Phalanx CIWS on top of the aircraft, Two GAU-17 retractable underbelly Cannons, 50mm Tailgun, and if possible at the nose of the Plane a Laser Cannon or Railgun! (If not I leave something exotic for you to decide;) Standoff Weapons Air-air and Air-ground Hypersonic Missiles! For instance for Air-air something like The AIM-260 and for ground attack AGM-183! Plus JATO Take Off😅🙏

I just bought flyout today! I would love to see a tutorial-type video on how to get started with building my first plane.

Concept? Akron and Macon worked, granted the sisters were very unsafe in bad weather

amazing video

Your original flying aircraft carrier video remains the top viewed because that was the most gorrrrrgeous plane in the most gorrrrrgeous thumbnail. And I would love you to continue working on it. Pleaseeeeee ❤

this type of vehicle could be used to break records in speed by using other prototype aircraft without wasting its fuel when takeoff!

Subscribed with bell, this is the first video I got notified for since the cinematic trailer. KZfaq is being annoying again.

It's to small & practical. It needs to be bigger.

ah yes, that emergency bottle of whisky 😂, nice plane!

Arsenal Bird is that you? Also, LOVE your videos, you make FlyOut look so easy..

I've loved the concept of a flying carrier since the Arsenal Bird in AC7, it's my desktop background!

This is a cool concept and you put a lot of effort into it. Well done! My question would be however, if you just hang the fighters under the wing, how do you refuel and rearm them? I think if the carrier has to act autonomuous, then he culd not send them back to some groundbase but it should be done on board.

Well if we're dealing with the hypothetical, then I would highly recommend replacing your nuclear reactor with low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) cells. There are groups currently working on this technology and perfecting it. I don't know the specific energy output, but from what I've read so far, it could be incredibly powerful while at the same time very compact. That means with such a dense source of power output your craft could carry lasers to deal with any aircraft including hypersonic missiles, possibly satellites too.

damn bro, your plane sound like the tripod in the war of world movie

You would need to wait like an half hour for wake turbulence after that thing took off.

Oh my god that flyby... music to my ears

IDK, I feel like the Aigaion from Ace Combat 6 made more sense design-wise

What I'm thinking can't be modeled here but I would think it might be easier to deploy from space. Imagine a command center with 6 of these things attached to it in orbit like a big metal pinecone. Use the planet's gravity to carry you to your target, deploy fighters, complete mission, collect fighters, return to orbit.

the sound tho the SOUND just makes for a psychological warfare machine

Loved the video, I do want to note however that nuclear technology has come a long way and we are able to drastically reduce the weight compared to first gen technology that was likely what was used in the original program.

Radiation shielding on the reactors isn't itself redundant. Radiation can be considered corrosive to all materials. Radiation itself even can change the color of certain minerals, which is how amethyst gets its color. Radioactive particles being essentially cannonballs on an atomic scale means they absolutely deteriorate any materials they come into contact with, so that shielding is necessary for structural integrity and also any fine equipment nearby.

This makes me want to play AC7 again

my design would be a double wing, for store planes on top and still have lift on the under wing, and it would be much smaller, just to carry 10 fighters for the mission, and a an124 is allready big to it... and it would need to land on water, becouse in a war it would be capable of refueling with ship, and also would be able to refuel submarines...

Actually there was an operational flying aircraft carrier called Project Zveno (soviet for idk), it saw operation in the second world war and all its missions were a HUGE success. No idea what happened to them, probably they were already outdated as the design was built in the 1930's

Stealth modded F-14 Tomcats with pilots on the Aircarrier operating them "by wire" would probably let you add a couple more parasite fighters to the complement.

I know you coloured your reasons for not doing it early in the video but I would love to see your take on a Sky Destroyer to escort this ting. I sky carrier task force would be a cool sight to see.

cool to see that image used as the thumbnail

i like the idea of this

The closest we might ever get is a Jumbo Jet that can drop medium range drones out the back and recover them with a cable or something

All power issues go away when you just use the hot rocks to make props go round

In my heart of hearts I still prefer a nuclear powered zeppelin style airship drone carrier over a massive arsenal bird style flying wing design, but regardless these huge builds are super cool and well thought out!

Paper aircraft. 1. Launch site. 2. Energy requirements and resupply 3. Huge target. 4. Cost.

Flying aircraft carrier can (unlike naval carrier) utilize in-the-air re-fueling and in-the-air re-arming - both systems already known and working on different airplanes. Therefore "landing" will be neccessary only for repairs and ending of drone missions. But for REAL standoff missions, you should either use satelite comunication with the drones, or have a specialist "retranslation" type of drone. But only the fuel and ammo storage for the combat drones would be pretty hard nut to crack. Modern designs are expecting the ammo to be somewhere in a "bunker", where when it explodes, the explosion is channeled outside of the main vehicle. Other supplies there would be at least water, food, spareparts, hand weapons, fireman equipment for cause of onboard fire. When we combine all of that with superheavy nuclear engines, it might be too heavy for even gigantic aircraft. Not to mention, the carrier is too big for typical airfield, therefore it should be able to land (and take-off) verticaly.

I always loved the one from ace combat Aigon p-1112 I tried to make it in ksp before with welding but still had issues with crashes etc Wonder if you could make it in this?

Might be decent concept as a drone carrier.

Lockheed watching this video after you did all the early r&d work so they can😮 get started 🤤