Talk:Parasite aircraft

Unmanned parasites
Many of the last entries in the list of parasite "aircraft" are unmanned drones / missiles.

Q-2C Firebee, fire practice target drone D-21, reconnaissance drone Pegasus, satellite launcher X-43 Hyper-X, research drone White Knight/X-37, research drone

I wonder whether it is a good idea to include non-manned aircraft/drones/research model aircraft as the line between them and missiles is small (e.g. the Luftwaffe's Mistral programme, or the USSR's MiG 19 based air launched anti-shipping missiles). If unmanned aircraft/research models/drones/largeish missiles are to be included as parasite aircraft there are very many dropped unmanned research "aircraft" not included at present - basically only post war US types are in the list above. Some agreement as to boundaries is probably also a good idea. Winstonwolfe 01:49, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

When is an aircraft not an aircraft
Further to the above, I suggest boundary issues as to when drones/missiles count as aircraft are impossible to negotiate if we let in small remote controlled targets like the Firebee, satellite launching rockets like the Pegasus and research models like the X-43 as "parasite aircraft".

I suggest all non manned "aircraft" should be deleted from the list of parasite aircraft. That would be: DC-130/Q-2C Firebee, C-130 based drone

Lockheed D-21/M-21, for high-speed reconnaissance, based upon the SR-71 Blackbird (1963)

L-1011/Pegasus, for satellite launches (1990)

B-52/X-43 Hyper-X, a hypersonic research test article White Knight/X-37, for DARPA's spaceplane project

If you disagree, post reasons under :-). Winstonwolfe 08:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Remote controlled aircraft differ from missiles so I would consider retaining those particularly if the carrier was to recover the "drone". I would though leave one or two uses of aircraft as carriers to launch rockets as examples of where the carrier concept can also go. Is the list supposed to be examples or exhaustive. GraemeLeggett 09:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I assumed it was supposed to become an exhaustive lsit of parasite aircraft. Leaving aside the Zvenos, do you know of any manned examples not on the list?

Possibly a different section could be added to include those listed above, noting that these are examples of similar ideas or boundary cases, I don't know that the inspiration for unmanned drones or air launched space vehicles resulted from parasite aircraft, so I'm a little uncomfortable with "where the concept could go". If a drone section is included examples such as the German Mistel or Russian KS-1 Kometa / AS-1 Kennel, and Kh-20 (AS-3 Kangaroo) aircraft sized missles - and the unmanned Migs dropped in testing the idea.

Incidentally I understood it was Felixstowe, with an s, as it was named after the seaplane station (and port) of that name.Winstonwolfe 03:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 10:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Who you callin' a parasite?
What's the origin of the term? TREKphiler  hit me ♠  18:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The term 'parasite' is ridiculous for this use. In biology, a parasite is something that hurts the host. It is also generally implied that 'parasites' are not being hosted willingly..

Aircraft that are based and launched from other aircraft are not 'hurting' the host, they are assisting and cooperating for a shared goal. In biology a more appropriate term would be mutualism or symbiosis. Yes they take up space and use more fuel from the larger aircraft, but this could be said about any equipment, ordinance, or people carried by any aircraft.. 'Parasite aircraft' is a dumb term that should be replaced. As far as I can tell, this is not a widely used or accepted term, but it appears that some Wikipedia editors are trying really hard to make it seem as if it is.. AnswerManDan (talk) 03:29, 7 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Over ten years to reply to a question must be some sort of record. If you read the sources on this page you will see the term parasite fighter being used a long time before wikipedia was even thought of so unlikely to be made up by editors here. MilborneOne (talk) 09:10, 7 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Most 'parasites' are carried by the host. Hence the term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.8.163 (talk) 08:14, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:MM Short Mayo Composite scan.jpg
The image File:MM Short Mayo Composite scan.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --01:46, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Baka bomb
Wouldn't manned missles such as the Baka bomb qualify as parasitic aircraft even if they were on one-way suicide missions? Bachcell (talk) 04:19, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed move to "Composite aircraft"
My references mostly refer to "composite" aircraft - often these do not use the term "parasite". I also think that approach would lead to a more useful article. Therefore I propose to move this article to Composite aircraft. Comments/votes welcome. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:59, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, I have two reasons for this proposal: &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:50, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Most sources discuss the whole "composite aircraft", often with descriptions such as "smaller" or "secondary" craft rather than parasite.
 * 2) "Composite" in the title allows discussion of the carrier ship and the combination, which I think would lead to a better presentation.


 * I'm not convinced. At the moment I can think of a couple of aspects which need to be addressed. 1) that parasite and composite in these cases are substantially different things. The instances of parasite aircraft include: a much smaller aircraft carried by another generally for the larger aircaft's benefit (parasite fighters defending the bomber or airship) in a reversal of the usual understanding of parasite; the parasite needing the larger aircraft to take off (research aircraft lifted to altitude). On the other hand the Short Mayo seems to be the only instance I'm aware of its type - something akin to a multistage rocket in aircraft form (if you get my meaning). 2) composite as an article title might be confused with composite material (based on a search through the Flight archive turning up that as well as the Short Mayo). 3) now I think of it "compound aircraft" which might be phrase that could apply to the Short Mayo would also be a non-starter due to possible confusion with entities of the form "compound helicopter" "compound gyroplane" etc. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There have been many composite types over the years. Others include the Japanese Oka Kamikaze plane with carrier, the German Mistel converted fighter/carrier variants and S&auml;nger spaceplane projects, the French Leduc ramjet on its carrier, and the American Lockheed M21/GTD21A and 747/Space Shuttle. None of my sources refers to these smaller craft as a "parasite" - the only references I can find are to "parasite fighters". For example Jim Winchester's Concept aircraft, Grange, 2005, covers many of these types, with only two mentions of "parasite" - both in the context of "parasite fighter". Whatever we personally or the World Wide Woolly-heads would like, Wikipedia must reflect the reliably documented consensus, and many of the projects mentioned in this article are composites rather than parasites. Nor can we talk of "compound" or any other undocumented term - "composite" is the only term I can find in use (or recall being used), though we do need to refer visitors to the recent usage in the context of composite material airframes. If you prefer, I could move the composite examples and a summary of the parasites (which also form part of a composite) to Composite aircraft and the meat about the parasites to Parasite fighter. But we cannot leave this material on a page whose title has little if any reliably documented usage. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I find the term parasite aircraft cropping up in the Flight archives and other parts of the site eg [|this blog by Graham Warwick]. The archives are not easy to search, separating parasite in this usage from parasite drag, so its hard for me to quantify the incidence.
 * The search ofr composite but not referring to material of construction has turned up some interesting points. A search of articles about (Major) Mayoturned up this which states that Maia was not a modified Empire but came from a different (earlier) design. This may be the first instance of the "composite aircraft" phrase in Flight. this one to me makes the point that in the composite (as opposed to parasite) the two parts of the aircraft work together until separation.GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:43, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

You can search the flightglobal archives on phrases, although noise also gets returned - I see your point about parasite drag. I have not had time for a thorough search, but a quick look at "composite aircraft" found: All those date from 1937-1944. The larger craft is invariably the "carrier", I could see no term for the smaller (other than "upper" as opposed to "lower" for the carrier). The use of Parasite in this context doesn't seem to make an appearance until the 1950's. I unearthed one "parasite aircraft" and one "parasite fighter" before I had to stop and write this. More to follow, hopefully. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 22:06, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * airship plus zeppelin killer as composite
 * Ref to Pemberton-Billing slip-wing fighter proposal (ref Flight Dec 26, 1940, p 550) as composite
 * Me109/Ju88 as composite
 * misc German designs, inc Mistel (e.g. the above Me109/Ju88) as composite


 * I found I had I had to select a narrow section of years at a time to try and keep the number of pages returned by the search below 100. The instances you listed come post appearance of the Short-Mayo which may be important in that it defined the phrase "composite aircraft" for later. GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Here are a few more references:
 * letter to Flight, 1953. Mentions both parasite and composite in the same context.
 * Flight 1960 - 2986, Shorts composite VTOL fighter study: Upper as "jockey aircraft"
 * Winchester, J.; Concept aircraft,Grange, 2006 - Tupolev Vakhmistrov Zeno described as a composite with parasites + mother ship, Short Mayo described as a mothership.

Meanwhile I have now stumbled across yet another meaning in the Flight archives for "composite aircraft", giving three in all: If we could find an alternative name for the first of these, that might be a better title for the main article. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Two airframes joined at takeoff, which separate in flight.
 * 2) An aircraft constructed from composite materials.
 * 3) An aircraft comprising parts of multiple cannibalised airframes of different types, joined to make a single airframe.


 * Well, I turned up more stuff on composite designs, there is no doubt that not all composites involve parasites. So I have made something of the Composite aircraft page, adding some of these new refs too, and removed any types from this page which are not normally described as parasitic. If any of these is to be restored here, then a reliable reference needs to accompany it. IMHO I have not cut hard enough, but I fear causing (worse?) offence. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merge
The three articles parasite aircraft, composite aircraft and captive carry cover essentially the same topic - aircraft conjoined in flight. They do perhaps discuss from very slightly different viewpoints, but I feel there would be a benefit in having these discussed in one single place. Anxietycello (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Firstly, see the discussion immediately above which led to the breaking apart of the parasite aircraft and composite aircraft articles.
 * Secondly, both of the above are design concepts which involve separation in flight, while captive carry is merely a flight mode in which no separation takes place - typically used for testing or ferrying. IMHO captive carry belongs in a dictionary not in an encyclopedia and the current uninformative stub article should simply be deleted.
 * Since many parasite arrangements are composite I'd suggest that any joint discussion goes in the composite aircraft article. Some of the current parasite aircraft content probably comes under this scope and, as I suggested in the previous discussion, could usefully be moved across.
 * &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Consensus or no I think that they should be merged. The subject is not wide enough to have three articles on EXACTLY the same thing. One aircraft carrying or joined to another in flight (not refuelling though as both receiver and tanker are flown separately at all times). It is as simple as that. Re-directs will take care of searches.Petebutt (talk) 11:24, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Just looked at composite and most of the examples are more like parasite. To my understanding in a composite aircraft, both contribute to the "flying" - the best examplebeing the Short Mayo where both elements contriibuted lift and power up to the point of separation. Is there a neutral term covering both elements? GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Please follow up my initial remark and check out the discussion immediately above this one. That discussion led to the separation of the two articles, because a composite includes both a carrier or mother and one or more parasites. Not all the referenced examples require the parasite to contribute to the conjoined "composite's" aerodynamics (whatever we might personally think is sensible has nothing to do with it). The "neutral" term is therefore composite. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Definition of parasite
What exactly is a parasite aircraft? Some questions:


 * Is any air-launched craft a parasite or must it be able to return to the mothership for recapture? Do we have a reference for that?
 * I would expect that some parasites cannot return. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Is a craft held internally in an onboard hangar a parasite? Do we have a reference for that?
 * Think this applies only to a couple of American airships? &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * An air-launched missile carried underwing or under the centre section is not usually described as a parasite. Is a manned aircraft any different? Do we have a reference for that?
 * I would expect the manned types to be no different. For a craft to be a parasite its role must be secondary to the carrier's (whereas in a composite it is the other way round). &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Composite content
Much of this article discusses composite aircraft types comprising mother ship and parasites or jockeys, e.g. the whole section on Examples of parasitic aircraft combinations. Should this material be moved across to the composite aircraft article? &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:34, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Boeing proposed craft
According to this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747#747-8 the "747 AAC" was an aircraft Boeing considered making that would carry 10 "microfighters". 98.127.119.21 (talk) 00:32, 1 March 2014 (UTC)


 * And... ? - BilCat (talk) 00:41, 1 March 2014 (UTC)


 * And... that's information that's directly related to the article? That, geez, I don't know, maybe someone would be willing to expand upon and include in the article? I've brought very useful and relevant information here that will enable someone to improve the article. Do you expect me to do all the work? 98.127.119.21 (talk) 06:01, 20 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I expect you do more than simply dump a little info on a talk page and expect someone else to do the hard work for you.If someone wants todo it, they will, but it may take awhile. - BilCat (talk) 06:09, 20 June 2014 (UTC)


 * "Do you expect me to do all the work?" Why, do you expect us to? This is the encyclopedia that anyone, even you, can edit. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:22, 20 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Strictly speaking, a USAF idea farmed out to Boeing to see if might work. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:26, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * And to Lockheed, if I remember rightly. But these were just projects, no aircraft was ever built. To date, the article covers only those actually flown, so there is a notability gap to close before we can address this vapourware. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:37, 20 June 2014 (UTC)