The Gremlin-mothership arrangement is distinguished by its scale. But several smaller versions of the underlying idea are also in development. One is being put together by General Atomics, the maker of Predator drones. Predators are showing their age, but General Atomics hopes to breathe new life into them by producing a version that is a mothership for smaller drones called Sparrowhawks that will carry intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment, electronic-jamming apparatus and possibly explosives. Flight tests began in September 2020, though Sparrowhawks have yet to be air-launched and the firm has not explained how they will be recovered in-flight.

Sparrowhawk's ma'am

The American army, for its part, plans to use helicopters fitted with drone-launching pneumatic tubes as motherships. These drones, which, like Gremlins, unfold their wings after launch, have a wingspan of 2.5 metres. In a test conducted last summer six such drones launched in flight were recovered in the air, albeit not by the Black Hawk from which they had emanated. Rather, they were snared by a quadcopter drone dangling a cord that snagged hooks on the target drones' wings. In May the army plans to use rail catapults to launch bigger drones from helicopters.

As with Gremlins and Sparrowhawks, the army's push for what it calls "air-launched effects" is driven by America's shift from counterinsurgency to potential war with a foreign power. Advances in the ability of Chinese and Russian radars to pinpoint troops and aircraft supporting them is a particular concern, says Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Freude, who is overseeing the technology's development at the Army Futures Command, in Alabama. This will push army helicopters back from the front line, he says, so they will disgorge numerous drones that will zip ahead instead. They are to hunt for targets, distract the enemy, and serve as an extra communications network. The capability should be operational in less than three years.

Aerial aircraft-carriers of these sorts do have drawbacks. Snatching drones from midair eats up precious time. That and the manoeuvring required could make it easier for an enemy to shoot down a mothership. But drones that can be reused 20 times offer advantages, not least of cost, over expendable single-shot alternatives.

Castle builders solved the problems brought by cannons by redesigning fortresses to be low, thick-walled and protected by bastions. That worked well. Whether launching aircraft-carriers into the sky will be an equally successful response to technological advance remains to be seen.

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