View Single Post
Old May 2nd, 2005, 04:50 PM   #24
Damocles
Bad Email Address
 
Damocles's Avatar
 
The Last Person


Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Earth
Posts: 10,713

Default Airgroup.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpyOne
I've seen that site, and it's great work.

First off, I had glossed over the need to keep that big central flightdeck clear.

The 4000-and-change-foot Galactica is about 2/3 the size of the one I described. Its landing bays are only 2 Nimitzes long, and less than 2 wide (about 1.5). The big rectangular part around the landing bay looks to be about as high as a carrier from keel to flightdeck.
HOWEVER, there is a hole about 30 feet high (more counting decks and beams) and 146 feet wide running the entire length of the bay. That makes it about twice the size of the Nimitz flight deck, but all craft are kept pushed to the extreme inboard edge.
That "inboard edge" starts well in from the back of the pod, and presumably is similar in the front, so we're looking at under 2000 feet. Each Viper is at least 12 feet wide, and they are not nestled nose-to-tail but rather parked with access space all around. Call it 1800 feet available and 18 feet per viper?

Let's say the outer hull of the pod is 10 feet thick (so the interior area is bounded by the 185 foot measurement), that puts only about 20 feet of space on each side of the Landing Bay, and the outboard side is probably mostly filled with the launch tubes.

So, the only places Vipers could be stored in the bay are:
in launch position: 16
along the inboard edge: 100
Below the landing deck? There does seem to be some space there, but it's unclear if it is tall enough and it might well be machinery or something.
Above the landing deck? Quite possable, but no evidence of it. We do have some evidence of other things being up there (like pilots' quarters).
Two more places Vipers could be stored: inboard in the space between the landing deck and the hull, and outboard in the same area but leaving room for the launch tubes. Both are quite cramped.

Given that there is machinery and firefighting equipment and stuff in each Bay, 100 Vipers seems a little high for this size, if anything.
Of course, the one I was describing is 50% larger in all directions.

One arguement against the smaller Galactica: Try fitting in the launch tubes.
By my measurement, there's about 30 feet from the edge of the landing deck to the outer hull edge. If the tubes start right at that edge and run at a 45-degree angle they're about 42 feet long, or about 1.5 times the length of a Viper.
The tubes sure looked longer than that to me. In fact, they looked enough longer to make my 6000-foot version look small (same tubes now 63 feet long or 2.27 Vipers long).

One nitpicky thing:
Actually, I've counted the visable planes in several of those photos, and it appears to be a little less than half. (42 or so of 100+)
Which is neither here nor there
.
Peacetime CAP is four birds in the air, two alert five on the cats, one Hawkeye aloft out of normal four embarked; of the seventy+ aircraft in the air wing total(excluding helos). What I found astonishing was so many hard stood on the deck.

http://www.cadre.maxwell.af.mil/warfarestudies/wpc/wpc_txt/navy/cvw.htm
Damocles is offline   Reply With Quote