Will mini aircraft carriers ever be viable?

Landing on it would be a bitch in poor weather, it is hard enough on a full size carrier in poor weather.

Is this Iran's new aircraft carrier to complement their new fighter?

That looks fun

I like to think the recoil is pushing him up the zip line.

Baby carrier.

Attached: USS Bataan (LHD-5).jpg (2100x1396, 769K)

according to wikipedia
escort carriers were done in by guided missiles and helicopter carriers doing their job a lot better than they did

I wonder if one of those would be a good platform for F-35s. They're STOL capable, or were at least supposed to be.

Ahh shit, the Bataan does carry them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bataan_(LHD-5)

Probably.
>small aircraft
>pilotless craft to save room
>might be a good idea to make them single use since landing is hard
>these craft could be stored vertically to save space
Should be enough to turn even the smallest ship into something capable of bombing targets.

Hypothetically you could make a platform on cruisers to accommodate a vtol f35 and launch them like helicopters from smaller ships.

Attached: VTOL.jpg (1000x786, 409K)

Yup! Most nation's use aircraft carriers of comparable size. One of the reasons the Harrier was so popular was that it could operate of off LHD size ships with a full payload. The F-35B can take off vertically with a light (non combat) load, or a very short take off fully loaded.

Bigger carriers are cheaper to operate.

You could make them drone carriers, I guess.

How do you figure a fusion reactor addresses the issues with airborne nuclear energy?

if they can make it small enough, but good luck

But it's pretty damn likely we'll have smaller fission reactors than fusion reactors for a long, long time, though.

This. Cheap miniaturized local CAS. Same system can be swapped onto a flatbed trailer and brought inland.

A nuclear battery maybe, but not enough juice. Solar might be better.

A true operator.

No. Efficiency scales exponentially with size when it comes to aircraft carriers.

Well when you get down to that size you really need your planes functioning as VTOLs rather than STOVLs. While ON PAPER you can do this with the Harrier or F-35, neither can do it with an acceptable combat load. At that point what you've really got is a floating helipad.

The F-35 is not VTOL, it's STOVL. It can land vertically but it requires a short runway for take off. Granted it can do it from a very short runway with a R A M P but it's not able to operate like a helicopter.

>the absolute STATE of my erection right now thinking about an 80s era bank heist film where one guy escapes back up his zip line with a comedically large box on an RPK.

Attached: __fujiwara_no_mokou_touhou_drawn_by_shangguan_feiying__14e92406a9a1326a44dcec0fb1de62e1.jpg (432x518, 157K)

I'm guessing you haven't the foggiest idea what it takes to maintain a jet fighter

We have those

*grabs your jet*

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No, super carriers carrying flying battleships is the only solution with any kind of future.

The Claaaaaaaaw

What is the advantage of this compare to vertically landing?

Decreased fuel consumption?

Cool kid points

How sad that this will be lost to most anons

Checked and
>1 number apart

I'm a youngun and I remember this. Pizza planet looked dope.

It's always been VTOL with no combat load, after the engine upgrade it can take off vertically with more fuel and maybe weapons.

Still fucking retarded, but it can take off vertically

But do you have enough equipment onboard to make it worthwhile? Because that's the thing. It's capable of VTOL operation but in terms of useful operation it's a STOVL.

I can't find any numbers, but someone said something like they could run short missions from VTOL, pretty sure that means no, but eh.

It's definitely moved from literally pointless to only probably pointless though, which is neat.