In the film released in the 2012 and in the more recent "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", appears the headquarters of SHIELD, an international spy and anti-terrorist organization, called "Helicarrier". It is a sort of giant flying platform for landing and take-off of aircraft.
The DARPA has issued an RFI or request for information to help create an "aircraft carrier in the sky". The DARPA RFI aims to accelerate and improve the development of cutting-edge projects. Accepting ideas from non-experts is a smart way to quickly create something never tried before.
The idea (no, they won't really build a "Helicarrier", at least for the next thirty or forty years) is to transform a C-130 transport aircraft into a flying aircraft carrier. The drones will be launched and will be able to land on these flying vectors.
Owning a fleet of "Helicarrier" is not madness; indeed, it could be the new frontier of the US strategic projection on the globe. Flying carriers capable of launching unmanned drones, they would save money, time (compared to a normal deployment of an aircraft carrier) and help save the lives of pilots and the very expensive airborne aircraft. The aerial platform could deploy drones to perform multiple missions of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). Finally, a flying carrier would allow long distance attack operations. The United States could also deploy armed drones in areas of the globe where they have no access to airports.
The times for a flying base are not yet ripe. The first obstacle is to make it possible to launch and recover drones from a flying platform, but instead of starting from scratch, DARPA has proposed a much more effective approach, namely to make minimal changes to existing large aircraft. The deadline for submitting proposals to DARPA expired yesterday. The first "Helicarrier" prototype is expected in four years.
Franco Iacch
(photo: DARPA opening / above frame "The Avengers")
