Carrier Landing Styles

I'm no physics professor but isn't it possible that the size of a capital ship creates a gravitational force, however minor? (Whats the law? Any object in motion will remain in motion unless an equal or opposite force acts on it?)
 
Taht's right, but the gravity of an object of this size is so miniscule that you could throw yourself out of the gravitational field with a twitch of your finger.
 
There's too possible explainations that I've been able to think up.

One is that without the extra boost, the fighters wouldn't be going fast enough to clear the carrier with their scoops open. Launching out of a carrier and then getting rammed up the ass would be bad.

The other would have something to do with the fact that the gravity field extends further than the deck of the ship, as shown in the movie. Going through the exit of the bay and dropping before you can get clear enough could slam the back end of your fighter into the edge of the bay.
 
By being 'rammed up the ass', are you stating it in reference to another launching fighter hitting it?
 
I think he means by the carrier itself, which may be moving as fast as several hundred kilometers per second.
 
Are we assuming the fighter is already 'airborne'?

Assuming it is a tube type carrier, if the fighter is going FASTER then the carrier on takeoff, it will leave the gravity field, and since space has no drag, continue going faster. If it is going SLOWER, the carrier will 'overtake' it, and it will drop out of the tube on the exit end...
 
Without the catapult (be it mounted in a tube or on a larger deck), the fighter doesn't build up enough speed to outrun the carrier.
 
If it STARTS at the speed of the carrier, and is in the carriers gravity well when it lifts off, it will REMAIN at the speed of the carrier, unless it thrusts.
 
The fighter doesn't need to build up that much speed. It's going the same speed as the carrier, all it needs is to get an extra push (just by turning on it's engines) to go faster. Don't forget that we see coffins leave the flight deck in WC3 and 4 with just gentle shoves.

Aren't catapults and (forgot the term) landing catchwires products of the novels, though? The only times we had catapult-like takeoffs were in the launch tubes of WC1 and Prophecy. WC2 we saw the ships take off under their own power, with possible catpults with the two "lanes," but the ships seemed to land and set down gently. Both WC3 and 4 we took off with our own power. Don't we see shuttles come in and gently set down, only to take off and leave on their own power in the cutscenes?
 
Fighters have a terminal velocity because of their scoops. This is their maximum velocity. Without an extra push from something else, this isn't necessarily fast enough to outrun the carrier the fighter's launched from.
 
The coffins don't have scoops, so they would remain at the carriers speed, or the ships were at dead stop when they pushed them out.
As for the fighters, the scoops would probably be the reason why you need catapults to take off. As for the Victory, the only thing I can think of is it was an oversite, or more likely you didn't need to have catapults since the carrier is not moving when you launch.
 
But, since all forces have an opposite and equal reaction, when I take off, shouldnt that push the victory backwards?
 
Possibility: takeoff fields are used to prevent scouring the deck with high-radiation particles during busy flight ops, or just generally to prevent random mutations and cancer in spacecrews?

(Bear avoided using thrusters in End Run because the deck was too close in... this gives slight credence to the above theory)
 
Antman said:
But, since all forces have an opposite and equal reaction, when I take off, shouldnt that push the victory backwards?
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What's your point, exactly?
 
Chernikov said:
(Bear avoided using thrusters in End Run because the deck was too close in... this gives slight credence to the above theory)
Click to expand...

Well, wouldn't the thrusters sear the crew and damage equipment/parked fighters?
 
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