Airborne aircraft carriers are aircraft which can launch other aircraft. These typically are large aircraft that launch fighter-interceptor planes.
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List of airborne aircraft carriers
Dirigible aircraft carriers
Several plans were drawn up to outfit Zeppelin-type dirigible airships to launch and recover fighters. These are also the typical airborne aircraft carriers found in fiction.
Bomber aircraft carriers
Early days of the jet age had fighter aircraft that could not fly long distances and still match point defence fighters or interceptors in dogfighting. The solution was long range bombers that would carry or tow their escort fighters. This is similar in concept to cruisers that carried escort fighters, or the merchant aircraft carrier. Several bombers have been used by NASA as launch platforms for experimental aircraft.
Transport aircraft carriers
A few specific aircraft have been built or modified to transport other aircraft; the most famous of these, a pair of modified Boeing 747s known as the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) belonging to the United State's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and are now used only to transport the US Space Shuttle Orbiter vehicle, though one was used by the Space Shuttle Enterprise to actually launch the orbiter for atmospheric approach and landing tests. The Soviet Union created a similar vehicle (the Antonov An-225) to support the Buran spacecraft. More recently, White Knight has been used to launch the Space Ship One privately owned space craft, and is slated to be used for a follow design.
- Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) - launched flight testing of Enterprise
- White Knight - launched SpaceShipOne
- White Knight Two - designed to launch SpaceShipTwo
- White Knight Three - anticipated to launch SpaceShipThree
