Investigation of an Airborne Aircraft Carrier Concept (1973) [pdf]
dtic.mil
dtic.mil
Then came "fighter-bombers". The F-15, which is a fighter, has almost the bomb load of a B-29, considerable range, and the ability to fight its way to a target. It also can usually put a bomb on the target, rather than somewhere in the general neighborhood, so fewer bombs are needed. (In the WWII era, bombers had trouble consistently hitting the right city. There were cases where the wrong country was bombed. So vast numbers of bombs were dropped.)
"It was common in the early years of the war for bombers relying on dead reckoning navigation to miss entire cities. Surveys of bombing photographs and other sources published during August 1941, indicated that fewer than one bomb in ten fell within 5 miles (8.0 km) of its intended target."
And that is in _daylight_ bombing.
I also remember reading that some British bombers accidentally bombed British mainland in bad weather (with at least twenty miles of sea between their target and Brirtsh mainland) http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2454254 may mention such cases, but isn't online.
With an easily affordable consumer electronic device that can fit in my pocket, I have better navigational abilities than the absolute best money could buy until a handful of decades ago.
[1] http://timeandnavigation.si.edu/
[2] http://timeandnavigation.si.edu/multimedia-asset/clipper-pil...
A better example would be the Tornado used by the RAF which is a true fighter-bomber.
The RAF no longer uses the Tornado F3 air defence variant as these have been replaced by Eurofighter Typhoons, whereas the Tornado GR4s are still flying and will eventually be replaced by F-35s.
USS Akron (ZRS-4) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Akron_%28ZRS-4%29
USS Macon (ZRS-5) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_%28ZRS-5%29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/11/10/...
Of course it does not look like the unholy love child of a Parrot AR drone and a nuclear air craft carrier :-)
General startup advice that can be learned from this : Kids have always had really bad taste. You can make money off that. But always keep in mind, "the kids like it" does not equal "that proves its good". Teens arguably due to hormonal impact have even worse taste than kids.
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20141111/DEFREG02/3111100...
It would be much less useful against another type of opponent, like Russia, China, probably Iran (at least it comes close to it), Syria (has pretty functional fighter jets and bought S-400 missile systems) - ie. the ones who possess capabilities of striking airborne targets hundred miles away.
Jamming and other countermeasures would make something like this that is a drone mothership very interesting over large land masses.
US has a huge edge anywhere there is water, but deep inland, have a fully mobile and defensible air field that can go anywhere is extremely compelling. Doubly so when you already have established air superiority.
that is done by satellites in particular. And China for example develops ballistic anti-ship missile which would be able to strike targets 2K miles away. A ballistic warhead coming at 10M would present next level of challenge even for ship-based anti-missile systems. I don't see a flying aircraft carrier able to carry any meaningful defense capabilities against such an attack. My point here is that, even more than in case of naval aircraft carrier, such flying carrier would be useful only when total dominance is established, which wouldn't be the case with any meaningful military opponent. Of course there is no actual plans to fight an actual war against any such opponent :)
Even if no nuke ever reached North America, the consequences will. Case in point is Fukushima radiation being detectable on the west coast. (http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Fukushima-detection)
Granted those are trace amounts, but if a full scale nuclear war took place in Eurasia, we'd definitely would feel effects.