DARPA wants industry to build a flying drone "mothership"

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.

Iran wants to sink our carriers...

That may not be as easy as they think...

Via The Hill:

Iran will target U.S. aircraft carriers based in the Persian Gulf if a war were to ever erupt between both countries, an Iranian naval chief warned Tuesday.

“Aircraft carriers are the symbol of America’s military might,” Adm. Ali Fadavi, according to the Fars news agency. “The carriers are responsible for supplying America’s air power. So, it’s natural that we want to sink the carriers.”

Fadavi is naval chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and made the remarks as Iran completes a large-scale mock-up of a U.S. carrier.

Iran is currently building a replica of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, which will be used in future military exercises.