Recovering the first stage of the Falcon 9

The obvious way would be to bring it back like the SRB's of the Shuttle. But can we improve upon that?

As I wrote before, it would be a great advantage if you could fly your way back to the launch site. But this requires a lot of extra hardware and it wouldn't seem practical.

What reminded me of the Flying Falcon was a mention on Twitter about the X-3 Stileto. It is really not all that worth mentioning. But it did jog my brain a little, because the thing looks like a rocket with wings.

In a flash, I got this idea about what you might be able to do with the first stage of the Falcon.  I got a little inspiration from airships.

While following JP Aerospace, I noted that he has worked on making rigid structures made mostly of compressed air. Such a scheme has also been employed on airplanes. An airplane with all of it structural components made up of inflatable parts has been flown before.

So, why not make the necessary wings out of inflatable parts?  They would be inflated when needed.  The control surfaces could be mated with it, so you would have an integrated wing structure.  The structure would be folded back against the rocket casing before launch, and when it came time to come back down, it would swing out and inflate.  The rocket would then become a glider, and come back to base.

Or, if power is needed, a little fuel could be retained and the rocket would power up to provide some thrust.