Carrier Landing Styles

Sycorax said:
I fail to see the usefulness of landing during a firefight around your carrier for two reasons: 1) it's a better idea to ditch rather than risk a crash in a craft that can't continue, and 2) since you're on defense you should probably stay up untill all attackers are cleared, unless the thought of death in the center of a giant fireball is appealing.

A safe landing area (an oxymoron, in my opinion) doesn't exist in a scramble.
So the 100's of million dollars in hardware or the pilots life (not to mention years of valuable and expensive training) isn't reason enough to land on the carrier during a firefight?
Plus, you're air wing has a serious problem if 99 fighters can't do what 100 fighters could :(. Or in the case of the limited ships Prophecy can show up at one time during a scramble, a fighting force of 19 ships is not taking that much of a firepower/power projection/air-space coverage hit over 20 ships.

C-ya
 
And who in their right mind would want to risk an Eisen-style tongue-lashing? One of those was one too many, thank you very much.:)
 
Regarding the launch from WC3 and 4 carriers, did everyone forget that fighters carry their own fuel supply. Granted, normal propulsion is achieved by collecting hydrogen from scoops but the afterburners use internal fuel. One quick tap on the burners would send the ship out of the bay and into clear spaces wher it can open scoops. Also, we have to remember that most carriers are stationary when launching fighters or moving a small speed. Have you ever launched when the carrier was already moving? No, therefore said carrier will not ram you in the ass. Remember, this isn't Earth, carriers don't need to get up to speed to launch, in fact the opposite should be done.
 
Nemesis said:
And who in their right mind would want to risk an Eisen-style tongue-lashing? One of those was one too many, thank you very much.

Hehe, unless you do have elves in the back somewhere ;)

C-ya
 
How did you guys learn about the carrier launches and stuff? ALl the books i have are the WC3Wc4 Wc2 and Wc1..I was thinking the catapault as a...Steam one like in standard Aircraft Carriers...but then again this is WC...God I have a lot to catch up on!
 
Sylvester said:
Also, we have to remember that most carriers are stationary when launching fighters or moving a small speed. Have you ever launched when the carrier was already moving? No, therefore said carrier will not ram you in the ass. Remember, this isn't Earth, carriers don't need to get up to speed to launch, in fact the opposite should be done.

It's not unknown, though. WCIVN mentions how one pilot on the old Tiger's Claw forgot to make the clearing turn after launch, and the carrier rammed him in the ass. Needless to say, there wasn't enough of the pilot left to bury afterward.
 
I loved making those "moving carrier" landings in wc3/4. The ones where the carrier is moving along nicely, and you get to come in under full power, but it still seems like you're moving slowly.

I, however, hated it when the carrier would pull a wicked turn on you and plant you in one of the four hard surfaces nearby.
 
Mystral Hawk said:
How did you guys learn about the carrier launches and stuff? ALl the books i have are the WC3Wc4 Wc2 and Wc1..I was thinking the catapault as a...Steam one like in standard Aircraft Carriers...but then again this is WC...God I have a lot to catch up on!

Actually, they're looking at using electromagnetically-driven catapults on the new carriers for the United States Navy, instead of using the steam-driven systems... so it's not that far off.

Sylvester said:
Regarding the launch from WC3 and 4 carriers, did everyone forget that fighters carry their own fuel supply. Granted, normal propulsion is achieved by collecting hydrogen from scoops but the afterburners use internal fuel. One quick tap on the burners would send the ship out of the bay and into clear spaces wher it can open scoops. Also, we have to remember that most carriers are stationary when launching fighters or moving a small speed. Have you ever launched when the carrier was already moving? No, therefore said carrier will not ram you in the ass. Remember, this isn't Earth, carriers don't need to get up to speed to launch, in fact the opposite should be done.

Again, look at 'Freedom Flight' - a fighter DID get rammed up the ass by the Claw when its engines failed, because the carrier is moving when it launches. It's just you're usually moving FASTER than it, relative velocity-wise, when your engines are on and the drag of the scoops isn't slowing you down. You just don't usually notice the carrier moving because you're moving at a faster velocity than it is, when your engines are up - you and the carrier, if you don't have your scoops on, move at the same velocity. Once those scoops go on, you get slowed down... which can have rather deletrious results if you're rammed by something with a faster absolute velocity than you.
 
How about, instead of catapulting in front of the carrier, you catapult from the top, on an incline? Therefore, you will be catapulted away from the ship.

Or you can use side-tubes.
 
Getting fired to the side could be dangerous. You'd have to pay extra attention to traffic around you to make sure you don't get "rammed up the ass" by another nearby ship, or a big chuck of rock or something.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
No, they're forward-facing... they're just in the carriers "wings".

Hrm, that does make a lot more sense. Of course, seeing is believing, so I guess I'll have to double check. :)

Assuming the carrier isn't accelerating, "absolute" velocity doesn't have any meaning, as all velocities are relative to the reference frame... although you can still get "rammed up the ass" if you're decelerating (there's another one for you, overmortal). Ouch. Then there's the whole momentum of a big huge ass carrier vs. your fighter... the velocity might not be very high, but getting hit by a semi at 1 m/s still hurts a heck of a lot more than getting hit by a bug at 1 m/s.

Side launches were just mentioned (again); thought I might bring up another launch system while we're at it, though. In the various spin-offs to Macross (the original used a "carrier-in-space" with a traditional catapult), they use a 'drop' launch scheme (http://macross.anime.ru/robotech/vfs-sdf.jpg). Instead of a catapult launch, they simply move the fighter off to the side on a launch arm, then "drop" it. The fighter moves off under its own power, taking advantage of the fact that the launch happens in zero-G (pretty nifty, that... when I just read about it, it didn't seem so bad, but watching them push that fighter over the side of the Claw in the WC movie, and having it drop like a ton of bricks, was truly painful...).

Anyway, I think that's somewhat less efficient tactically than a catapult launch, but one advantage would be you could launch a heck of a lot more craft at once (since the launch system is relatively compact, and the craft can be launched from all over the place, rather than just off a few catapult decks).
 
Sylvester said:
Regarding the launch from WC3 and 4 carriers, did everyone forget that fighters carry their own fuel supply. Granted, normal propulsion is achieved by collecting hydrogen from scoops but the afterburners use internal fuel. One quick tap on the burners would send the ship out of the bay and into clear spaces wher it can open scoops.


I don't know about you, but I think I'd rather avoid having the afterburners fired inside the ship. One little careless accident, and you could have dead personnel, fried fighters, or worse. Even more importantly, the carrier deck has an atmosphere, and any open flame (for example, from afterburner exhaust) will ruin the air inside the deck.

Best to keep the flames out in space, where they belong.
 
junior said:
I don't know about you, but I think I'd rather avoid having the afterburners fired inside the ship. One little careless accident, and you could have dead personnel, fried fighters, or worse. . .

I believe that was what Bear was worrying about in End Run, considering the cramped deck space on the Tarawa. But firing off your afterburners seems to be standard procedure on deck launches.. We see a lot of thrust when taking off in WC2, and there was the whole thing about using extra boosters in the WC4 novel.
 
ChanceKell said:
But firing off your afterburners seems to be standard procedure on deck launches.. We see a lot of thrust when taking off in WC2, and there was the whole thing about using extra boosters in the WC4 novel.

The WC4 situation was an abnormal condition, though. The Intrepid wasn't equipped to launch a heavy ship like the T-bolt that Blair brought with him when he defected (not unlike how the Tarawa-type CVEs needed the kludged-up Sabre-D for its bomber wing because CVEs aren't really equipped to operate Broadswords).

Then, of course, there's the issue that it's the Border Worlds, where safety regulations sometimes tend to be considered as nothing stronger than "polite suggestions". :D
 
Back
Top