Captain Raymond "Raygun" Lai is presumed to have been a Colonial pilot in the days when the Viper Mark II was in active service prior to its successor, the Viper Mark VII.
A Viper with Lai's name (tail number 8547) was part of a squadron of Viper Mark IIs in the Galactica Museum.
After word of renewed Cylon attacks on the Colonies and with no ordnance for the recently-decommissioned Galactica and few Viper Mark VIIs on board, Commander William Adama orders the deployment of the museum Vipers in the ship's defense. Lai's Viper is piloted by Kara Thrace in Galactica's first sortie since the Cylon War.
Starbuck's skillful piloting of Lai's old Viper, despite a strike that damaged one of its engines, saves Galactica from possibly fatal damage after Starbuck shoots down two of three kiloton Cylon nuclear missiles fired by a Raider that target the old battlestar(TRS: "Miniseries, Night 1").
in the episode "The Passage," Raymond "Raygun" Lai can be seen on the air group organization chart in the squadron led by Kara Thrace. Since this mentioned-only character existed in the long past of the series's characters, possibly during or shortly after the Cylon War, this mention on the chart is a continuity error.
