Story highlights Pentagon wants aerial platform to carry drones

Defense Advanced Research Products Agency is seeking proposals

Pentagon wants to use existing aircraft to launch and recover drones

(CNN) Got an idea on how to make a flying aircraft carrier? The Defense Department wants to know about it.

The Defense Advanced Research Products Agency has a request out for ideas on how to develop an airborne platform that could both launch and recover other aircraft.

But before you start looking for schematics of the Starship Enterprise (NCC-1701) or Battlestar Galactica, or how you might levitate the USS Nimitz, think a little smaller, like B-1, B-52 or C-130.

DARPA wants ideas on how to turn those aircraft currently in the Pentagon inventory into platforms that could carry Unmanned Aerial Systems, what most folks call drones, close to their targets. The drones could then go about their business -- bombing, missile strikes, reconnaissance, etc. -- then fly back to the mother ship and head for home.

This plan could add to the range of the drones and open up new missions they cannot now undertake because of their limited range, DARPA says.

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