How do the Viper's land?

The_Minister

How do the Vipers make it into the hanger without the ship depressureising?

Sherifu

The deck section that they land on retracts, as seen whenever they use FTL, so presumably when it retracts it is sealed from space and pressurized.

kevmy

Yeah I think there is a bulk head at the end of the runway thing that opens onto the engineering deck area. This is closed when the are coming in and then they close the outer doors to space (we've seen them close these at some stage while someone was still flying in space but I forget which episode) and open the bulk head to engineering.

Vokes

Magnetized to the deck as well, mebbe ?

Pepe LeFrits

I always thought they'd manoeuver the Viper onto the landing pads that descend below the deck, like the Raptors.

John_C

They could probably reverse back up the shutes they launch from but the Vipers have no wing mirrors.

robby^5

The decks come out from the side of the ship, they retract when going FTL.

Overheal

Vipers probably use the same lifts the raptors do. Presumably there would be an airlock mechanism in this. For mass operations however I can see why it would be more efficient to recall the vypers by retracting the pods (as in an FTL jump) and pressurising the section, allowing the vipers in through a main door, back into the repair bay.

robby^5

Ahh this clears things up completely, from the Wikipedia entry on the current Battlestars from the new series:

Battlestars are seen to possess two flight pods. The Galactica's flight pods retract during an FTL jump, although the Pegasus does not retract its flight pods during jumps. The flight pods are landing bays for returning Vipers and Raptors. The pods are normally 2 story decks, with the top deck being an open-ended landing bay for vipers, raptors, and small civilian ships like Colonial One. Vipers and Raptors move to a side elevator lift and descend to the lower hanger bay, where they are maintained. The launch tubes for Viper egress is also located on the lower level. Once in launch position, an airlock closes behind the Viper and the front of the tube is open-ended, exposing the Viper to space for launch. The Mercury class battlestars, like the Battlestar Pegasus, have a third story on each flight pod. There is a second landing bay that is upside down. Vipers landing on this deck flip 180 degrees and land on the lower deck.

So now ya know.

Overheal

w2g robby killing our speculative fun between seasons

*cough*

So whos the cylon?

aidan_walsh

Overheal wrote:

So whos the cylon?

Scott Bakula.