Re: Fighters and FlatTop Carriers

On Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:02:48 -0600 djwj <djwj@eazy.net> wrote:
 
> One obvious use of a flight deck has been overlooked in the 
discussion: If you look at the "Tubes" in Battlestar Galactica, they 
are pretty form-fitting. Even the bay doors in Babylon 5 don't leave 
much room for error. It is conceiveable that a fighter may become 
"Bent" rather than "Broken" or have a wing half shot off and dangling 
from a number of cables or fuel lines. A fighter in such a condition 
could not be recovered by a "Tube" recovery system, you would need a 
deck to land on and receive basic hull repairs before being transported 
to the fighter's cradle. <

Which is what is done in both BSG and B5; the launch tubes/cobra bays 
are _launch_ bays, in which the fighters are placed when ready to 
launch. Vipers and Starfuries recover through a large opening big 
enough (especially in B5's case) to take cargo ships, from where they 
are transported to maintenance facilities to be repaired, refueled 
and/or re-armed. I don't know of any case in which fighters have to 
_land_ using "form-fitting" tubes, and I wouldn't care to try it!

> If the deck was large enough (one for a supercarrier) it could be 
used to assist in repairs for other ships in the fleet. Having a 
"mobile ship engineering platform" in the form of a fleet's fighter 
carrier would aid in long-range repairs for patrol, reconnissance or 
"exploratory" fleets. In fact my patrol carriers have disproportionatly 
large decks because they ARE the "drydock" for their light cruisers and 
escorts on long missions. <

That could work, but wouldn't it make more sense to have this platform 
_inside_, where the ships could be worked on without the need for 
spacesuits? Or at least where the enemy can't see them to shoot at?

The "problem" with, say, NAC carriers is that the "flat-tops" are _too_ 
big (interestingly, the Valley Forge SD's fighter bays merely have a 
smallish balcony -- do they recover through the aft shuttle hatch?). A 
modern carrier's deck size is dictated by 2 things: the need for the 
"runway", and the need to have somewhere to put the aircraft that 
aren't flying or being worked on below. This is one reason why the 
angled deck was such an innovation -- suddenly, it was possible to 
store aircraft on deck _and_ keep them out of the way of flying 
operations! Now, this isn't going to happen in space because the pilots 
have to get out of their ships, and it makes rather more sense to do 
that inside a nice pressurised hangar.

The Ark Royal/Invincible "flight deck" has what looks like 2 catapults 
running along its length, and I can accept that that might be a useful 
thing to have for, say, an emergency scramble, although it's not 
necessary for day-to-day operations. But there seems to be no need for 
the full width of the deck unless it's been found useful for mass 
recovery of fighters (the Oshkosh principle -- three or four parallel 
landing strips as opposed to the one or two used normally) -- and it 
might make sense structurally or for reasons to do with the overall 
balance of the ship (affecting the drives or something).

Of course, Jon's said that the ships were designed for looks rather 
than by "logic" and/or PSB, but it's interesting to speculate.

> okay, that's my $0.02 plus tax and interest

Fine. That'll be $37.48, please. <g>

Phil
--------------------------------------------------------------
"If you let a smile be your umbrella... you'll get wet teeth!"
   -- a forgotten comedian, quoted by me: Phil Atcliffe
				(Phillip.Atcliffe@uwe.ac.uk)