I discovered that helicarriers were real! More or less. First a quick history in pictures as to what a helicarrier really looks like- the MCU version was super cool but the comic version was more heli less carrier. Here it is in its first appearance as depicted by the King, Jack Kirby:

And how it looked when I was more familiar with it in the late 70s/early 80s:

Jack Kirby and Stan Lee were both WWII vets and would have been familiar with the pre-war rigid airships. I was reading a National Geographic today that had an article about the USS Macon, an American Navy airship. A lead zeppelin, sort of. The damnedest thing was, it carried a complement of five biplanes, little Spitfighters that were stored inside but were deployed by a hook. They had to latch onto the hook to "land" as well! Somehow I was unaware of this fact my whole life. Pretty neat. It only lasted two years and then it crashed into the ocean where it lays still. They've located the remains as well as a few of the Spitfires. Too deep and damaged to salvage, as far as I know. The article was from 1992 so maybe since then they've brought it up but I really doubt it. Click here to go to the wikipedia article, it's pretty cool. I always thought the helicarrier was one of the more outlandish flights of fancy Stan Lee and Jack Kirby took but maybe they really took a flight on an airship, or saw one.