Talk:Viper Mark II/Archive 1

Powerplant

It seems to me that the engine type should be a hybrid of rocket and jet engine. Rockets use a mix of two internal fuels, an actual propellant and an oxidizer. It appears maybe, to save fuel the Vipers' powerplants have intakes to grab oxidizer from the atmosphere when necessary. What's everyone else's opinion? - Panther 20:59, 17 August 2006 (CDT)

Well one of the Goals of the series is to not really worry about how the ships run. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 21:05, 17 August 2006 (CDT)

No shit, eh? ;) Still one of the joys of being a sci-fi fan is to speculate on the tech. I gotta wonder though are those fans on the sides inside the engine nacelles intake fans? That would make it a jet. :D Panther 03:35, 18 August 2006 (CDT)

I agree with you completely, Panther. My joy is to make articles such as Computers to glean what we do know. The intakes, as we should properly guess, is a holdback from the original TOS Viper design. It just looks like a jet fighter. I do believe your idea of getting oxidizers whenever possible helps, although we know as well that it's more likely to maintain status quo on the excessive fuel use inside an atmosphere. In space, they may or may not need a real oxidizer, but then, that's the magic of tylium. We don't know WHAT the hell it really needs. :) --Spencerian 15:43, 18 August 2006 (CDT)

During the miniseries Tyrol says something along the lines of "The reactors are still hot, all we have to do is pull the rad buffers and fuel them". So maybe it's not a chemical reaction that provides thrust but a nuclear-driven one, or an electrical one powered by a nuclear reactor. Possibilities are raw fuel being pumped through a hot reactor, the heat causing the fuel to expand, thus creating thrust. Another possibility is ion-propulsion, where atoms of fuel are ionized by a strong electrical field and accelerated out of the spacecraft by a strong magnetic field. Of course tylium is described as being highly explosive, and neither heating or ionizing would require an explosive fuel, so...--PassiveSmoking 17:48, 6 February 2007 (CST)

FTL in Vipers / the Blackbird

The Viper (RDM) articles say that the Vipers do not have FTL. However, it was seen several times in the miniseries that they do:

• Apollo links the shield generators onboard Colonial One with the FTL on his Viper to pull of the trick that makes it look like they are destroyed.
• Boomer jumps back to the fleet with the Tyllium refinery ship in tow.

There have also been several occasions in the series, I just can't think of them at the moment. Obviously, the Vipers do have some sort of short-range, limited-use FTL. What does everyone else think? --KenoSarawa 18:46, 12 November 2006 (CST)

Umm, I don't remember Apollo doing, that. I'll go watch it again. Boomer is flying a Raptor which does have FTL. There has been no mention or showing that Vipers carry FTLs. Doubtless Apollo would be searching for ships like Boomer was if his did. --Talos 19:41, 12 November 2006 (CST)

Okay, went and watched it. He said he used the hyperdrive to manipulate it. If it was the Viper's FTL, it sticks out among the consistant non-FTL Vipers we've seen many times in the show. There are times when a short range FTL would've been used if it existed: the fighters running to Galactica in Act of Contrition, Apollo's strike team in The Hand of God, etc. --Talos 19:54, 12 November 2006 (CST)

He used the hyperdrive of Colonial One to manipulate the coils from Galactica in the cargo bay. At no time does he mention his Viper. --Maserati1945 01:16, 07 February 2007 (CST)

Steering a viper

Two things seen or mentioned in the Episode (The Hand of God) are that, firstly, Vipers have some kind of "Thruster pedal" (Adm. Adama sais so while speaking to Starbuck about her knee being the reason for letting her not participate) and secondly in the scene where Apollo flys through the shaft you can see in one scene that he sees an obstacle, pulls the joystick backwards, and in the next that some kind of reverse thrusters are fired without pulling up the ship's nose. So one can think that forward thrust is on a pedal and reverse thrust on the "pitch" axis of the joystick? That they use the same terms like normal fighterplanes is said by Starbuck while she was crawling in the Cylon-fighter on board the moon she stranded on. - Destotelhorus 17:40, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Real spacecraft have six basic degrees of freedom; pitch, roll, yaw, and thrusting back and forth along each axis. This means that a six degree of freedom pilot input system is needed. Pedals tend to be associated with controlling the rudder on aircraft, but in a dual-role craft which can handle both space and atmospheric flight, it would make sense for rudder pedals to drive an actual rudder control surface in atmospheric flight and to operate yaw thrusters in space.

NASA space craft from Apollo onwards (maybe Gemini too but I'm not sure) used a pair of joystick-like devices for the six axis controls. The right-hand stick is similar to a typical joystick but it can also rotate clockwise and anti-clockwise around its shaft. This controller is called the Rotation Hand Controller (RHC) and controls pitch, roll and yaw. The left hand stick also provides 3 degrees of freedom but has a somewhat different design and is known as the Translation Hand Controller (THC).

I imagine the Viper joystick operates like the RHC, except in only 2 axis. The yaw axis is controlled by the pedals. There would also have to be an additional control that would operate as a combination throttle (for atmospheric flight| and THC (for translation manoeuvres in space). The pilot works the stick with his right hand, the throttle/THC with his left and rudder/yaw thrusters with his feet.

As for what the actors do during manoeuvres, it's probably from the "waggle the controls and try to look cool" school for acting, I wouldn't read too much into what you see them doing and how it relates to how the spacecraft moves. After all, having forward thrust on a pedal and reverse thrust on the stick makes no sense, an aircraft designed like that would be totally counter-intuitive to fly.

--PassiveSmoking 17:43, 6 February 2007 (CST)