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More pre-production sketch design. While I admit that movies like Star Wars and TV shows like Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, plus anime series like Macross have had a profound impact on my psyche while I am very dubious of the idea of space fighters especially in films and TV.
One with the ranges involved in space I question whether one can carry enough energy around to get anywhere. Even if one allows for reactionless drives you still have to power it. Then there is the question of life support and useful payload. There is no advantages to streamlining for pure space fighters but it looks cool! Fins serve no purpose except to maybe position maneuvering thrusters further out from the center of mass and thrust. Assuming you need them anyways. Distances are so great that clear canopies offer very little advantages over sensors, but they let show off the characters faces better.
The problem is further exacerbated in TV and film since they very rarely portray space fighters as even being as large as conventional jet fighters! In fact one of the things I liked about Star Wars and Macross was that least their space fighters were roughly the size of current military jet fighters. Even the fighter I show here is more in the light fighter size than the F-15/ Su-27 category. But enough with my soap box rant!
These sketches show not only an idea I had for a ordnance loading lift but also an early version of the support cradle that the fighter rested on while sitting in its hanger on the carrier. Also it displays an early idea I had for the gantry to lift the fighter on to the its launcher. Both the cradle and the gantry were dispensed with later but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Also the somewhat ghostly multi-wheel vehicle is what I referred to as a class of vehicles called Mules which I explain in much more detail in further posts.
One with the ranges involved in space I question whether one can carry enough energy around to get anywhere. Even if one allows for reactionless drives you still have to power it. Then there is the question of life support and useful payload. There is no advantages to streamlining for pure space fighters but it looks cool! Fins serve no purpose except to maybe position maneuvering thrusters further out from the center of mass and thrust. Assuming you need them anyways. Distances are so great that clear canopies offer very little advantages over sensors, but they let show off the characters faces better.
The problem is further exacerbated in TV and film since they very rarely portray space fighters as even being as large as conventional jet fighters! In fact one of the things I liked about Star Wars and Macross was that least their space fighters were roughly the size of current military jet fighters. Even the fighter I show here is more in the light fighter size than the F-15/ Su-27 category. But enough with my soap box rant!
These sketches show not only an idea I had for a ordnance loading lift but also an early version of the support cradle that the fighter rested on while sitting in its hanger on the carrier. Also it displays an early idea I had for the gantry to lift the fighter on to the its launcher. Both the cradle and the gantry were dispensed with later but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Also the somewhat ghostly multi-wheel vehicle is what I referred to as a class of vehicles called Mules which I explain in much more detail in further posts.
Category All / All
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That loader vehicle looks a lot like the ones used to load ordnance on real-world military aircraft. As for the name 'mile', I believe the military used to have a vehicle by that name during the Vietnam era that was a 4-wheeled flatbed utility vehicle about the size of a golf cart. Think they used it for everything from cargo transport to mounting recoilless rifles in urban combat such as the Tet Offensive.
Fighters exist to engage and destroy other vehicles in their area of control. In this way they're similar to the hunter/killer subs, PT boats, or even destroyers. They might be employed to attack other targets, but their primary purpose is dominating their battlefield.
It's very possible for something like a fighter to be practical in space, but there would need to be the right mix of technologies.
(There's also an example from the early 1980s. The first two "Trillion Credit Squadron" tournaments for Traveller were won by mob ships -- powerful weapons and lots of them, but almost no defenses or mobility. They just swarmed their targets despite their losses.)
It's very possible for something like a fighter to be practical in space, but there would need to be the right mix of technologies.
(There's also an example from the early 1980s. The first two "Trillion Credit Squadron" tournaments for Traveller were won by mob ships -- powerful weapons and lots of them, but almost no defenses or mobility. They just swarmed their targets despite their losses.)
Yes I have some mech design already up on FA. Try http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2071893/ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1832016/ this is not true mecha but you might like it http://www.furaffinity.net/view/105.....t/view/865329/
Whoops something went wacky with the last part of my reply? You may also like
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Yes I rather appreciated the fact that they would operate the vehicles like they were really in zero gee.
I remember one episode where a Star Fury does slightly off to one side head on attack run of a large enemy vessel, then as the Star Fury is passing alongside the enemy he rotate 90 degrees and keep hammering away along the enemies flank. Once past enemy he rotates another 90 and loads his ass with plasma!
I remember one episode where a Star Fury does slightly off to one side head on attack run of a large enemy vessel, then as the Star Fury is passing alongside the enemy he rotate 90 degrees and keep hammering away along the enemies flank. Once past enemy he rotates another 90 and loads his ass with plasma!
Also, they took into account that sitting down is not necessarily a good idea for high-gees.
As to the above poster about windows....well, sensors can be ker-buggered. Sure at extreme ranges the Mark One is a bit useless, for getting into knife-fighting range (which is where fighters and CIWS excell), the eyeball is useful, for tracking movement in particular.
As to the above poster about windows....well, sensors can be ker-buggered. Sure at extreme ranges the Mark One is a bit useless, for getting into knife-fighting range (which is where fighters and CIWS excell), the eyeball is useful, for tracking movement in particular.
The problem is that air and space are very different environments with very different design requirements. A vehicle that is designed to operate in both will be out performed in either by a specialist design. For example jet engines are much better in atmosphere than rockets but are nothing more than dead weight in space.
Additionally entering or leaving an atmosphere is going to be a lot harder than you seem to think. Very low speeds for a space vehicle are extremely high speeds for an atmospheric one, for Earth the speed required for a low orbit is 8 kilometers a second or roughly Mach 24, which means that transitioning will take a lot of time and distance as well as leaving the vehicle vulnerable as its manoeuvrability will be seriously limited by aerodynamic forces and any significant damage is likely to result in the destruction of the vehicle (the Space Shuttle Columbia provided a very graphic example of this).
Finally on the scale of things planets are very small further limiting the usefulness of a dual environment fighter.
A useful analogy seems to be amphibious vehicles, boats can't pursue them onto land and land vehicles can't pursue them into the sea (rivers are ignored for the purpose of this analogy) but they don't perform as well as either in their own environment and their advantage is only in very limited areas near the shore.
Additionally entering or leaving an atmosphere is going to be a lot harder than you seem to think. Very low speeds for a space vehicle are extremely high speeds for an atmospheric one, for Earth the speed required for a low orbit is 8 kilometers a second or roughly Mach 24, which means that transitioning will take a lot of time and distance as well as leaving the vehicle vulnerable as its manoeuvrability will be seriously limited by aerodynamic forces and any significant damage is likely to result in the destruction of the vehicle (the Space Shuttle Columbia provided a very graphic example of this).
Finally on the scale of things planets are very small further limiting the usefulness of a dual environment fighter.
A useful analogy seems to be amphibious vehicles, boats can't pursue them onto land and land vehicles can't pursue them into the sea (rivers are ignored for the purpose of this analogy) but they don't perform as well as either in their own environment and their advantage is only in very limited areas near the shore.
DUDE! Is that a Macross VF-4?? I didnt think anyone else would be nerdy enough to know about those- as they only appeared in the last episode and one of the AMVs of Macross.
http://www.steelfalcon.com/Macross/vf4.shtml Heh, i might be wrong- but is still interestingly close. -unless those boosters are flush w/ the fuselage. So I may have just put my foot in my mouth- Yay! Either way, Very sleek design. ^^
http://www.steelfalcon.com/Macross/vf4.shtml Heh, i might be wrong- but is still interestingly close. -unless those boosters are flush w/ the fuselage. So I may have just put my foot in my mouth- Yay! Either way, Very sleek design. ^^
Some other reasons for employing space fighters- Precision targeting of both ground targets and destruction of point targets on larger ships (sensors, weapon turrets, engines), keeping a human being 'in the loop' when delivering heavy shipkiller missiles- strike fighters can be recalled and retasked where a missile volley could only be self-destructed short of the original target. Also a human pilot can see opportunities that missiles would never consider.
Well it depends on the series. Many of them are designed to be space/air fighters and are deployed from a planet, or a mother ship, so they dont have to go great distances. So I guess it depends on the operation. I do love the needle like look but I have lokes the odd, and maybe more realistic shapes of like star-trek for deep space ships. I love the design here It does look more macross then anything else :D
An interesting article on the subject of space combat ship types can be found at http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3as.html which makes the proposition that military spacecraft classifications would be "Navy" based rather than "Air Force" based...
Yeah myself and 
Tom_Clowder have been of the opinion that a naval model makes more since. After all they have the most experience in shutting folks in large cans and isolating them from the rest of the world for months on end.
Tom_Clowder have been of the opinion that a naval model makes more since. After all they have the most experience in shutting folks in large cans and isolating them from the rest of the world for months on end. 
But the question that eludes everyone.
Will the Spaceguard/Aerospace Force/etecetra be dominated by the Airforce or the Navy?
A lot of the Early pre-NASA tests were Airforce...and a lot of Airforce pilots shifted over to NASA when that agency got up and running. So one could say that the Airforce has it's foot firmly in the Aerospace door.
The only reason people think 'Space = Navy' is both thanks to most sci-fis out there, nevermind the 'Space soldiers = Marines' either.
Also the submarine analogies can be easily taken into account.
An environment hazardous to man-n-beast, fighting without ever seeing the enemy except as a sensor reading.
Will the Spaceguard/Aerospace Force/etecetra be dominated by the Airforce or the Navy?
A lot of the Early pre-NASA tests were Airforce...and a lot of Airforce pilots shifted over to NASA when that agency got up and running. So one could say that the Airforce has it's foot firmly in the Aerospace door.
The only reason people think 'Space = Navy' is both thanks to most sci-fis out there, nevermind the 'Space soldiers = Marines' either.
Also the submarine analogies can be easily taken into account.
An environment hazardous to man-n-beast, fighting without ever seeing the enemy except as a sensor reading.
Since at this point it was not yet made clear whether the craft had reactionless drives or not it was either an extended range fuel tank. Possibly retrievable, or a large power cell for the drive. Since they were primarily zero-gee vehicles I was envisioning all kinds of pods that could be attached to the fighters.
The tabletop supplement GURPS Spaceships pretty much has (realistically) useless fighters, even after the book about carriers and fighters came out. Basically the reason had to do with armor. Against large warships, fighters can barely scratch the paint. (It actually holds true in the Traveller RPG universe, too.) The end result is that resourceful players use fighters against support ships like tankers, cargo, etc. that's the life blood of any major military unit.
Personally, I've enjoyed the idea of doing a GURPS Spaceships game that uses fighters to do commerce raiding and real-area attacks, launching from what amounts to an escort carrier.
Personally, I've enjoyed the idea of doing a GURPS Spaceships game that uses fighters to do commerce raiding and real-area attacks, launching from what amounts to an escort carrier.
While vessels the size of current-day fighters make no sense in space (it would barely be able to make a few small maneuvers before running out of fuel), who says the fighters have to be tiny? If there were truly collossal starships battling, one-man fighters could be the size of your typical sci-fi series's small destroyers or frigates, and their carriers the size of a super star destroyer from Star Wars. Yes, getting that much mass in space is far-fetched, but if it could be done, then one might have one-man fighters participating in epic battles with hard sci-fi physics.
Yes they could, Although at that point they might be more like space going torpedo boats than fighters.
I guess the biggest problem I have is that they just get the scale wrong for most space fighters and modern fictional aircraft in film and television. This is why many of my own mouse aircraft are larger than many people initially imagine. If nothing else the fuel/ power supply to go any long distance requires adds mass and volume to the overall final size.
I guess the biggest problem I have is that they just get the scale wrong for most space fighters and modern fictional aircraft in film and television. This is why many of my own mouse aircraft are larger than many people initially imagine. If nothing else the fuel/ power supply to go any long distance requires adds mass and volume to the overall final size.
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