RE: Fighters and Hangers

Actually no.  I would envision a flat landing deck with various
rectangles marked on the deck, the pilot merely aligns with a rectangle.
 A sensor arm pops up and reads what kind of craft has entered the zone
and the appropriate arms/tractor/pressor beams lift from the floor and
shove the craft around until it's properly arranged.

For example, a single seat fighter lands in a bay, and the pilot stops
somewhere in a large rectangle. From the front area of the rectangle a
sensor arms pops up and scans the craft's IFF or other ID tag and
recognizes that it is a "Lightning Class, mod 2" fighter, Serial#
2108193 returning from CAP and being refuelled and re-armed for a strike
mission.  From the overhead camera, the computer realizes that the
fighter is off-set and off-angle from the optimal position, 2 meters
left and 15 degrees starboard.	It then raises the three support pylons
on the right side while a pressor beam activates from below the fighter,
lifting it slightly so that it can be moved.  Two arms with pressor
beams pop up up on the left side and slide the craft to the left until
the touches the right side support pylons.  Once in location the left
support pylons rise and magnetic clamps secure the craft to the pylons. 
Since this is a small craft, only the inside set of reloading arms is
used.  On!
 e arm contains a refueling hose while other arms bring up missiles and
an ECM pod.  After re-arming and re-fueling are complete, the clamps
release, the support pylons withdraw down into the deck, the pressor
beam lifts the craft and the side pressors rotate the craft and away it
goes.

A little later a large shuttle lands and needs to be re-equipped for a
strike mission.  The pilot lands the shuttle into the large rectangle,
the sensor pops up and detects a "Pelican-Class Assault Shuttle" # 03853
with 1/2 fuel load needs Anti-Fighter missile pod and ECM pod.	With the
larger craft, the computer activates the outer support pylons, aligns
the craft, refuels and reloads using the outer arms, re-orients the
craft to head out, etc.

The down side to having the cradle system is that you are limited by the
largest size craft that you wish to service.  So if the hangar could
normally hold 4 large shuttles, you would be limited to only servicing 4
craft at once, whether shuttles or fighters.  You could choose to mix
sizes, with one shuttle sized area and 4-5 fighter sized areas, but then
you will be stuck, if you have to try to re-supply 4 shuttles at once.

I can see another reasoning for a specialized fighter bay as you might
not want ordinance lying around in every bay and perhaps fighter bays
are additionally armored or structured so that a catastrophic explosion
in one bay doesn't take out the ship. (a la classic BSG where the Cylon
Raider crashes into the fighter bays)

--Binhan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doug Evans [mailto:devans@nebraska.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 2:28 PM
> To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
> Subject: RE: Fighters and Hangers
> 
>
> >But then on the other hand you can imagine a cradle that 
> locks the craft
> down and where robotic arms load >missiles and such onto hard points.
> 
> Would you tend to see such cradles tend to be of relatively limited
> capacity variation? Fighter-sized vs Lander-size?
> 
> It's the way I see a 'fighter bay'.
> 
>