BF2S Forums A plane that catches a plane in mid-air and lands safely?

It's been tried a few times in the past and was done once or twice in experimental testing using blimps as the mother ship to launch and retrieve small fighter aircraft

Here's a couple of examples:

Blimp carrier
Parasite aircraft

None of the ideas ever really took off due to cost and the danger of attempting to launch and land from another airborne craft, but it would be interesting to see how a concept would change the face of warfare.

Planes don't generally need 'help' getting to the ground, turn the engine off and it happens.

Combining two aircraft means the undercarriage of the mothership needs to carry the weight of both, probably better off just landing separately.

Having one parasite aircraft takeoff using the power of a mothership does have a benefit, the parasite aircraft doesn't need to carry the fuel required for takeoff and climb, which can be a considerable proportion of the total, they can also be aerodynamically better optimsed for speed or cruise. JATO is another option.

Aside, someone came up with a skyhook system to land harriers on small ships.