[JenB]

Uh... well... that does sound weird. Did it work?

[Corin Stormhands]

you kilt it.

[TalonDJ]

The prototypes seemed to. Bombers designs developed longer range fast enough (and WWII ended) removing the need for it.

[SuziQ]

Yep, the ice aircraft carrier did work, in the scale model they built, anyway. They were trying to find something that would be more impervious to U-Boat torpedo attacks. They realized that you couldn't blow up a iceberg, so they created a substance called Pykcrete, which was wood chips frozen in water and it was stronger than ice because of the addition of the wood chips, and it didn't melt because there were tubes of ice water running through the walls to keep it cold. The inside of it was hollow, and that's where the planes, equipment, and crew compartments were.

The scale model that they built floated just fine, but it wasn't completed until late in 1944, so it was determined that it was too late to try to actually build any for use. The one they built sat on a lake through the winter, spring and into the summer of 1945, with NO refrigeration going through it, and it only melted near the end of the summer. That's almost a year it took to melt the thing!