Re: Fighter bay design (was: FT-Fighters and bays)

Jumping in here,  you are both correct.

A mechanism needs to be in place to rescue fighter pilots and have a
reasonable chance of success.  If not done their mission motivation is
very
low (jihadic pilots excepted but the cost of training exceeds the value
of a
one shot weapon).

On the other hand an out of control fighter ramming a carrier cannot be
a
good thing.  So I agree that they would not be let near Mother.

So there needs to be a way to recover pilots from crippled fighters (and
crews that escape the destruction of their vessels).  This seems to be
some
sort of Frigate or Corvette mission, something with plenty of speed (for
rendezvous) judicious armor (they will be conducting CSAR (Combat Search
and
Rescue)) and room for some sort of recovery vehicle/large airlock
(either go
and grab the stricken fighter or surround it with your ship then close
the
door (different from the Carrier doing this as you specifically design
your
MAW (Multi Aircraft Welcome) to be protected from damaged fighters and
if
you lose a CSAR Corvette/Frigate you have lost less than the Carrier.

This brings an interesting mission type into play,  a small quick force
trying to locate the ELTs of pilot survival capsules as the main battle
moves away.  The CSAR vessel would be protected by others (Most likely
fighters as they have a vested interest in it completing its mission)
and
would tend to dart in, grab then run.

Just my $0.02

Bob Makowsky

----- Original Message -----
From: Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>; <gzg-l@scotch.csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 11:40 AM
Subject: Re: Fighter bay design (was: FT-Fighters and bays)

At 3:49 PM +0900 6/7/01, Edward Lipsett wrote:
> The next-easiest is (3): if the fighter pilot is wounded or the
>fighter cannot be
>controlled safely for some reason, it should not be allowed to
>approach the carrier at
>all. Either the pilot is in an airtight environment (even a suit) or
>he's dead; if

This runs contrary to everything that is held to be in Aviation Ops.
You always want your crews knowing that you will do every thing you
can do to get them home alive. Morale would be severely impacted by
this. Given the nature of space flight, an automated approach ala
Harriers coming into land on a carrier (Stopping first then landing)
would be trivial.

>into air anyway. The carrier will not want any highly-explosive
weaponry
and
>high-velocity fighters near it, even if they are friendly, unless
>they are under
>reliable control.

As opposed to currently where those aircraft come in and practically
crash land into the decks with all of this nasty gear onboard.
Armaments are safed by use of safeties and fuzing. The only time you
get major incidents is when you have fire. Hard to have that in
space....

[snip]
>is located under the launch/receiving deck, with  elevators (or open
>holes with air blasts for power, perhaps) feeding fighters up for
>launch. For safety
>reasons, there might well be launch-only bays, to make sure that
>no-one tries to land
>into a bay that another fighter is just elevating into.

Thats what the White shirts and LSO's are for. They control Aviation
ops and prevent aircraft from being put into the way of other
aircraft. They control activity on the deck. The Airboss controls
them and the airspace around the carrier.