Re: Fighters and Hangers

Ryan wrote:
> Men with hoses and ordinance handing gear work the same on an LPH as 
> they do on a CV as they do on the ground next to trucks and 
> hovercraft. You're probably pumping the same kind of fuels if you're 
> smart about your fuel trains.

Trucks and hover craft use different fuels from aircraft, today. This is
due to the need for higher performance fuel in aircraft and the higher
cost of that fuel. But let's assume that your fuel is the same, or you
have no need of fuel but you do have a need for oxygen in all sizes of
small craft. 

> What's the overall difference between a bay for interface craft and 
> fighters? Both are craft that work in a vacuum. Both types of craft 
> need fuel, ordinance and other kit as well as methods to load.

The big difference is the size of the fuel/oxygen tanks. The hoses
needed to fill the tanks of a fighter are going to be smaller and have a
slower flow rate than those needed to fill a pinance, or a scout craft,
or even a corvette sitting in a larger ship's hold. You probably won't
have interchangeable nozzles between these classes of vehicles. Even if
the nozzle size is the same, you have problems with flow. Too much flow
and you may rip the nozzle right out of the receptacle with the force of
the backwash (yes, you can build it to handle a higher flow rate, but
then you have to stress the fighter better for higher flow, which adds
weight, and weight kills a fighter's maneuverability). Too little flow
and you take forever to fill up that larger ship, which is why they
would probably have larger hoses.

You could make the hoses multi-purpose, tuning the flow rate. You run
the risk of hooking up a hose and not setting the flow rate properly in
the heat of battle. I also think you wouldn't want the same sized hose
for physical reasons (the surface area of a fighter is so much smaller
than that of a scout ship that it stands to reason your hose sizes would
be smaller). 

In a fighter bay, you have to have the ability to refuel several
fighters at once. This isn't a problem in a regular bay. This means
redundant capture, release, refueling, and rearming equipment in the
fighter bay, which means that a smaller percentage of volume is
available for the craft, and could very well get in the way if you tried
to park a bigger craft in the same bay. If it doesn't get in the way,
then you have excess volume when the bay is used for fighters.

In other words you could make a generic bay, but it would not be
optimized for any craft.

This is all just PSB that I thought of when I saw that ships needed
special fighter bays.

--
Allan Goodall		   
agoodall@att.net
http://www.hyperbear.com   
agoodall@hyperbear.com