Sci-Fi is becoming reality...
Washington (AFP) - It's a
Hollywood sci-fi fantasy that has long eluded the Pentagon: a flying
"mothership" that launches smaller aircraft.
The Pentagon's
research agency put out a request to industry this month to outline how a
large cargo plane could release drones to spy on or attack an enemy and
then return to the flying aircraft carrier.
The
concept conjures up fantastical images from "The Avengers" film and the
"StarCraft" video game, with large, lumbering motherships sending out
smaller craft -- but there are no cloaking devices involved in this
particular project.
At the
moment, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is not
close to constructing any test planes and is merely exploring the
possibility on paper, officials and experts said.
"This
is the float-the-idea stage of the concept. It's not the
build-me-a-prototype stage. We're not to that yet," said author Peter
Singer, who has written extensively about robots and warfare.
In
a conceptual drawing from DARPA, a cargo plane resembling a C-130
releases a squadron of drones that look similar to Predator or Reaper
aircraft.
