Post by Marcus Starkiller on Apr 2, 2006 16:51:23 GMT -5
Mitchell-Hyundyne
SA-23E Starfury
Susan Ivanova: "Here you go, I've downloaded a set of SecureCam pics from the Station Security database. That's me, flying a Starfury. It's my own personalised ship - you can see the Russian Star and Eagle painted over the top wing. It's a tradition with pilots to decorate their ships. This one's the Russian Star. We have other custom paint-jobs, such as the Sea Witch and the Flying Tiger. But I digress."
Performance Data
The basic SA-23E Starfury is a single-seater fighter, developed from the earlier SA-19. It has a wingspan of 18 meters, but is only 8.5 meters tall and 10 meters long from nose to tail; so it's basically a flying wing. It's perhaps one of the most manoeuverable fighters in its class, due to the multivector thrusters positioned on the four wing pylons you can see here. The engines are microfusion powered particle thrust drives, with vectored thrust bled off for reverse, vertical and lateral displacement. The tines extending at the rear are ion suppressors and act like fine-tuned thrust deflectors. The Starfury's a well-balanced and agile craft; and pretty solid too. It isn't designed for atmospheric flight - you can see that the wings are just box-pylons to support the thrusters - but it is one of the best space superiority fighters around. As for longevity, well the manual says you can last for one hour at maximum continuous thrust, though obviously you wouldn't want to do that. On patrol, we accelerate up to a cruising speed and just coast along to the destination.
In the Cockpit
Actually, you might not realise it, but the pilot more or less stands up inside the cockpit module. Here's a picture taken by one of the MaintTechs in the Cobra Bay - I think that's Alpha Wing. You can clearly see the pilot in an upright position. It's not as stupid as it sounds - once you're dropped out of the Cobra Bay doors, your ship's in free-fall and you're weightless. But as soon as you fire up the rear thrusters, you get slammed into the acceleration couch behind you. It feels like you're lying down on the floor, while in fact you're racing forwards. So actually it's more comfortable for taking the gees that the main engines put out.
You have to remember that we really push the envelope to keep up with the different physical tolerances of other alien races. The Minbari, for example, can keep fighting after massive blood loss; and the Centauri pilots are crazy - they'll pull turns that black them out, just on the off-chance of waking up inside the enemy's turning circle. The cockpit was also designed to give the pilot maximum forward all-round visibility; and from that standing position, you can get a feel for what's going on at your feet as well as over your head. I know there's the voice-activated on-board computer and the heads-up display, but nothing beats a mark 1 eyeball when you're fighting instinctively. You're fighting other pilots, not machines, at the end of the day.
Starfury Dogfighting
What's she like to fly? Well, you have this kind of joystick which fires the thrusters in quads or pairs, such that you can spin on a credit, or fly backwards, or jink straight up when someone's coming at you. The stick's on the right arm of the pilot's seat, which makes it easy to control with your hand without having to support the weight of your arm. If, for example, you've got a Raider on your tail shooting plasma cannon, you can fire both vertical vector thrusters on the lower pylons to jump above the stream of fire, then you can fire the port main engines aft, and the starboard reverse thrusters to spin round clockwise. Naturally, the computer calculates the equal and opposite burst to counter your rotation when you centre the stick. Now, you're flying just as fast, but facing backwards and above the Raider. Angle down a bit to zero in, and bingo! He's toast.
Starfury Firepower
As for weapons, well we've got four large helium phased plasma cannon, two located under the top wing pylon, and two set forward under the cockpit. The pilots prefer the lower guns, because the muzzle flash tends to be less irritating than having stuff stream past you at eye level. The cannon work on the same principle as all PPGs - you have a reactor heat up helium till it's ionised, then you spit it out using phase-coil drivers to give it that extra focus and punch. The damage is done when the plasma charge splashes all over the target - you get heat damage and impact damage. These 'Furies can withstand maybe a couple of hits before they start to buckle. If we go, then we go. No boom today, boom tomorrow. But the cockpit module can be ejected off the front of the ship, so that gives you one chance. And then you wear a high-gee pressure suit, so even if the cockpit gets cracked, you have another chance. That's better odds than Russian roulette.
Your left hand controls the weapons. In addition to the main PPG cannon, there's the slower Rocketdyne projectile guns on the same hard-point. They fire slower self-propelled heat-seeking slugs. You can select fox one or fox two with a thumb-toggle and use your trigger finger to fire the cannon in pairs or quads. It sounds complicated, but it's really easy once you get the hang. You can be turning to train your PPGs on one guy, while you pass through the ion contrail of another. You can lock the heat-seekers on to the second guy, fire and forget, then get on with the first target. If you're really loading for bear, then you can mount external missles on the wing pylons. There's any number of hard-points you can use. Mostly, we don't bother with missiles, since they can explode in a PPG fight. You tend to want to get rid of them quickly! As for defenses, apart from the sturdy construction of the Starfury, which counts for a lot, there are four ECM pods on the trailing edge of the wing pylons to jam the other guy's tracking systems.