That is impressive. You've found another movie that uses a revolver to launch fighter ships. The one I am looking for was in black and white, and there were differences in the way the launcher operated. I've described that in more detail in the question. I had no idea that I'd have to provide details to distinguish between multiple movies with the same type of launcher.

@JRE, I'm not. I've got vague memories of what's got to be a third movie that uses exactly the same launch technique.

The cylinder even has the recesses seen on handheld firearms which may are may not come single-action revolvers. Firey!

Gun imagery aside, it does seem like an intelligent interlock design for this purpose.

@ikegami At first sight it seems like a very cool way to deploy fighters, but a little bit of fridge logic makes me think this would be an horrible design. In space you have no gravity, so there is no need to use "catapults" to accelerate ships to make them take off on short runs (and that "revolver" looks like it is not even providing thrust). Moreover, that huge mechanism is bulky, makes the mothership unnecessarily heavy (hence less maneuverable) and a terrible single point of failure: if it jams for any reason, you are unable to deploy. ...

@ikegami ... A zero-G depressurized hangar with a gate is a much simpler and reliable design. At least if the gate is jammed, it could be blown off using explosive bolts or be shoot open from the inside. I suspect in the 50s many story and screenplay writers had very few notions of physics and engineering, or didn't need to hire scientific consultants since the public was much more clueless about science.

@LorenzoDonati--Codidact.com I don't know to which catapults you are referring. I just meant the revolving aspect

@LorenzoDonati--Codidact.com it looks cool though, and you could probably argue for a system with manned fighters being prepped as others are being launched, without the need to get a whole hangar's worth ready in one go. Or perhaps the chamber is open at the back because you really don't want your launch fumes getting into the hangar

@LorenzoDonati--Codidact.com well, except for that whole lack of air thing. Makes it hard to breathe. Think of the service staff if not the pilots

@ikegami Well, I was speaking about technical feasibility in a scientific scenario (suspension of disbelief apart). I was thinking the hangar more as a docking/launch bay where you keep your fighters ready to launch (pilots can get in the cockpit using dedicated "umbilical cords", for example). You don't do regular maintenance there, you should have a separate pressurized hangar with proper airlocks. Keeping an area pressurized is hard and expensive, so you strive to minimize the volume of air that is lost or pumped out when you need to open it to the external vacuum.

@LorenzoDonati--Codidact.com me too. That's why chambers no bigger than the ships sounds perfect for that.

@ChrisH The part about the fumes is reasonable, but there are many other alternatives. My objection is not about having some kind of external "rack mount" for fighters ready to go, but about the big revolving thing. As I said, it has a very high coolness factor though!

@ikegami Agreed. But my objection is not about having some kind of external "rack mount" for fighters ready to go, but about the big revolving thing. There are a lots of things that can go wrong and that layout would make things worse. For example, if a fighter has trouble in a chamber, you risk losing all the "revolver". For examples, it's hit before it launches. Even if the other fighters are ok, you risk the whole "loaded" squad is stuck there. With that revolving mechanism, there is no easy way to have umbilical cords or hatches for the pilots to get in or out, once "loaded.

@LorenzoDonati--Codidact.com If the "cylinder" isn't solid, there could be emergency hatches in it that pilots could use to evacuate it in the event of a failure of the mechanism.

The "revolver" mechanism can also function as an airlock, allowing the hangar area to remain pressurized while fighters are coming and going. Being open front and back means that a fighter comes in, rotates into the hanger for refueling and/or rearming, then rotates back out and launches.

@krb Again, I don't question it is physically or technically possible, but as long as real engineering goes, it is extremely inconvenient and there are better alternatives. Docking in a chamber that almost fit the fighter in zero-G would be a nightmare, even with computer assistance. And the maneuver would be slow and dangerous, especially during combat. Without gravity giving a reference for up/down and an atmosphere providing drag and flight stability, matching the speed and rotation to reenter that "tube" would be extremely difficult. ...

... @krb The film "Interstellar" near the end has a realistic scene of a "capsule" trying to dock to the mothership in a critical situation (but not even near combat). In space inertia is a bitch! It would be much easier to enter a wide hatch like that of an hangar. And there are other better alternatives: go near enough the mothership matching its speed and bearing. Then the mothership extends a robotic arm with a clamp and drags the fighter inside a hatch (Space Shuttle did that with satellites!).

@LorenzoDonati--Codidact.com I agree with you that inertia is a bitch, even without taking space into account. However, in my mind, a carrier such as this should "never" be in "ship-to-ship" combat range (i.e. capital ships, fighters can dogfight), whereas if you are going to invest in small fighters, there should be some benefit in shorter range combat. So I see the value in the "catapult" is use the carrier to insert the fighter close to the target quickly, without using the fighter's fuel reserves or putting an oversized engine in it. The "tube" would work essentially as a railgun.

@sharur ... It would be just better to provide fixed launch tubes with external hatches (similar to submarine's torpedo tubes, for example), in which fighters would sit and wait for launch. It's the revolving thing that's just silly from an engineering POV. Even firearms abandoned the concept when higher fire rate was needed, and for firearms it's not so bad a concept, since the ammo is self contained and the revolving part is fairly simple (just one axle, with no other moving parts).

@sharur ... moreover, the motors needed to move the whole "revolver" would have to be overpowered, since at each "click" they have to move every fighter in the "drum", not only the one being launched. So there are a number of fighters that cannot yet launch, and are there like sitting ducks, not (completely) protected by the carrier's hull. And this latter will be "open" when "drum" is deployed. If you want to retract it, it will take much longer than closing all the "torp tubes" or hangar hatches, since it's mass is going to be much bigger. And you need an external door there anyway.