Aerial warfareBlue-sky thinkingPlanes can be launched from land and sea. Why not from the air as well?Aircraft-carriers are juicy targets. They are also increasingly vulnerable ones.Like medieval castles in the age of the cannon, technological advance threatens to make them redundant.Satellites and over-the-horizon radars mean pinpointing their locations is easier.And a single well-aimed, well-armed missile may be enough to render a carrier useless, even if one shot does not sink it outright.American naval planners are particularly worried about China's DF-26.This weapon, which came into service in 2018, is a so-called manoeuvring ballistic missile(meaning it can vary its final approach path, rather than being subject solely to the laws of gravity) that has been dubbed a "carrier killer".The DF-26 can be launched from a lorry, and can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead.This threat is fearsome enough to keep American carriers at least 1,600km from China's coast, reckons Bryan Clark, a naval strategist at the Hudson Institute, a think-tank.That is much farther than the range of a carrier's warplanes unless they can be refuelled in-flight.America's Department of Defence is therefore looking for a workaround.One back-to-the-future idea being tested (it dates, originally, from 1917) is to turn a suitable plane into an aerial aircraft-carrier capable of launching and recovering uncrewed drones in flight.
