The Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk had an actual... if brief ...service history aboard the Navy's airships USS Akron and USS Macon.
The Sparrowhawks had multiple roles. The way they operated was thus: The airship would lift off for patrol and its complement of Curtiss fighters would then take off and rendezvous with it in the air, catching the “trapeze” and being winched in to their hangars. While it seems a daunting feat, pilots said it was actually easier than trying to land on a pitching, rolling aircraft carrier deck.
Once in the hangar on the ship, the landing gear on the fighter would be removed and replaced with a 30 gallon belly tank. During the patrol, the Sparrowhawks would be used as spotter aircraft, with their on-board wireless sets, as well as functioning as a defense against attackers.
At the end of the patrol, their landing gear would be replaced and they’d launch and land ahead of the airship.
While the F9C-2 actually had an operational history, not so the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin, which was developed because there was no fighter at the time with the legs to escort B-36 Peacekeepers in the event of nukyular combat toe-to-toe with the Rooskies.
The idea behind them was that every tenth B-36 would be a fighter carrier, with three or four little teeny Goblin point-defense fighters in its belly.
In any event, it turned out to be so difficult and dangerous to launch and recover that it never got beyond the brief prototype stage. The two Goblins built accumulated a total of less than two and a half hours of flying time in seven free flights, only three of which ended with a successful hookup on the mother ship, with the remaining ones resulting in landing on the belly skid.
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