Nope. Sometime in the 1950's, the Navy launched some primitive missiles from very modified submarines, but never any aircraft. The biggest US Navy submarine was the USS Argonaut (V-4).
Actually the USS S-1 was fitted with an experimental seaplane hangar. I'm sure it carried a plane at some time before the experiment was declared a failure. Mike D
Narwhal was a sister ship, but the class was the V-class. Back in those days, submarines didn't get classes named, just given letters.
I spent more than a year trying to perfect an I-400, using a long OOP hull from Battlers, in 2003-2005. I deepened the lower hull by 1/2" but even then couldn't get the sub to be stable at the surface. I built it with saddle tanks port and starboard amidships and it was able to do static dives, resurface and fire the custom built light-weight BB cannon successfully. The gun was a 1.5 unit spurt cannon mounted inside the hangar and pointing aft. The sub had enough CO2 for at least 4 dives (I didn't try 5). The BB cannon and ballast system used a 20 gm CO2 capsule from Battlers Connection with a Rock the Boat Palmer regulator. Like real subs in trimmed down condition at the surface the I-400 model was unstable except in a flat calm and even then a hard turn would cause a 45 degree list it would not recover from. I was gradually transferring internal lead ballast lower down from inside the hull to the outside of the keel, with stability starting to improve, when a fellow in the OAF wanted to buy the sub. I don't know if he was able to fix the problem, but in 2009 2 other guys in NABS and I started to work on a CAD designed I-400 hull with scale upper hull and superstructure and much deeper than scale lower hull. Jay was a navy submariner and was certain the sub would work with stern and bow ballast tanks and with the deeper hull's lower center of gravity improving stability. Unfortunately Jay was posted to the Pacific Coast and Steve lost interest in the hobby; I completed the plugs and molds (see I-400 build thread) and made several sets of I-400 parts before selling the molds to Strike. I still have a set, but with 4 surface ships to complete it'll be a long time before I attempt another I-400. I know at least one person has successfully built an armed I-400 model in the last few years, but didn't use one of the Strike hulls; I assume the lower hull was much deeper than scale. Making a sub in 1/144 scale is a big challenge, and if it works there's still very little 'bang for the buck'!
Frank F built his small gun sub from the 2 I got from you Bob. His works great, spurt gun facing forward. He semi surfaces fires, and dives back down. Runs for the full hour. Only time he came close to getting it sunk was when the Gator slashed it with his front claws trying to sink it. Took awhile to come back up, and you could see the claw marks on the balsa. Frank got lucky. He took it to Nats a few years back. Pictures of it are here. https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103698495689062227750/albums/6054279207577774705
