The 5,000-Ton Flying Aircraft Carrier That Almost Got Built

In 1969, Lockheed engineers designed an aircraft with a 340-meter wingspan, a nuclear reactor for a heart, a crew of 845, and 22 fighter jets hanging from its wings — a flying aircraft carrier that could stay airborne for 41 days. This documentary tells the full story of the CL-1201: the real flying carriers of the 1930s (USS Akron & Macon), the billion-dollar atomic aircraft program and the NB-36H flying reactor, the physics of the design (including its 182 takeoff engines), why it could never work, the family of Cold War "paper monsters" it belonged to — and how DARPA's Gremlins drones finally made the flying carrier real, fifty years later. CHAPTERS 00:00 The impossible numbers 03:40 America's real flying carriers 07:15 The atomic aircraft program 11:00 The CL-1201 design 14:50 Life aboard a flying city 18:30 Why it was impossible 22:10 Was it ever real? 25:50 The paper monsters family 29:35 The return: drones & Gremlins 33:20 Why we still want it 37:00 The nearest misses 40:30 The filing cabinet of futures #aviation #coldwar #engineering