Talk:Raptor/Archive 1

Raptor Armament

In the Episode : "Fragged" we see a hovering Raptor use what appears to be a nose mounted "Vulcan" cannon of sorts to destroy a handfull of Cylon Centurions... is there any info on this gun, and wether or not its standard for Raptors?---Posted by Strato

• That was not a Vulcan cannon. That was a stack of missles. We've never seen Raptors firing bullets, and only on this one occasion have we ever see them fire anything (missles). We're not even sure if they're normally loaded with weapons of any kind; they could just be loaded on special occasions. Raptors are a support craft, which does actually enter a combat zone, and although a multi-purpose vehicle it's primary mission profile as stated by Boomer in the Miniseris is "to fly ahead of a Viper squadron, use long range scanning equipment to scout for enemy targets, then Jump (using it's limited small FTL drive) behind the lines of the Vipers, fall back and provide electronic support". It's not really meant to engage stuff. --Ricimer 18:51, 30 January 2006 (EST)

Does anyone have a high-res image of a Raptor equipped with missile pods and/or the underwing missiles? --Madbrood 06:37, 14 November 2006 (CST)

There hasn't been a HD airing of the episode yet. I could take a screenshot but would only be low res? --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 07:32, 14 November 2006 (CST)

Sure, go ahead. I think the aramament section needs one :) --Madbrood 08:16, 17 November 2006 (CST)

You are correct...went back and rewatched the DVD...for somereason I mistook the smoke trails from the missles as smoke from a vulcan cannon. my bad. -- Stratohead

The nuke?

Would anyone object to my adding the nuclear weapon mounted on Boomer's raptor in the season 1 finale to the armaments section? -Admiral Rupert

ECM Support

What does "well it supports other ships ECM" mean? (This is a sincere question, despite the fact I can't manage to inquire without what sounds to me to be a questionable tone.) --CalculatinAvatar 15:57, 8 April 2006 (CDT)

It provides Electronic counter meastures support for an entire squadron of Vipers, sort of like an Osprey. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 16:29, 8 April 2006 (CDT)

Raptor Controls

Does anybody know of any screenshots showing the Raptor flight controls? The closest I could come was this which doesn't have flight controls displayed, but has velocity readouts, etc. --Steelviper 08:16, 16 August 2006 (CDT)

There are lots of eps where Raptor cockpits are shown where we can start looking. By memory, useful ones should include Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I, Home, Part II and Fragged. I looked at the miniseries as well with no success. Given that these were designed based on helocopter designs, a small joystick control is highly likely. Maybe this is something that Ngarenn can confirm...? --Spencerian 10:26, 16 August 2006 (CDT)

I've also got a look at the interior in a season 2 video blog. The ECO has a joystick, but the port pilot's stick appears to be to the left of the seat, and the starboard pilot's seat has one to the right. Because of the room of the set it may have been impractical to make it a true joystick between the legs of the pilots. --Spencerian 15:42, 17 August 2006 (CDT)

Many modern aircraft have side-sticks though, helicopters generally have a center-mounted joystick and a right-side collective. --Talos 16:13, 17 August 2006 (CDT)

Capacity

It would be good to quote how many people can you fit into one Raptor. I assume we could glean this from Boomer's small evacuation from Caprica in the Miniseries, but I don't have that to hand. OTW 13:15, 18 September 2007 (CDT)

Well, even then, it might be a bit difficult to ascertain, since there were children aboard the Raptor as well. Two children could easily weigh about the same as a grown man. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 13:34, 18 September 2007 (CDT)

Weight.

It says in the side column that the Raptor weights 50 tons (!); is this actually specified in the miniseries? An Airbus A380 weighs about 620 tons, and its 240 feet long. Yet a Raptor that's roughly 30 feet long weighs nearly a tenth as much? Granted that this is a TV show, but I think thats a little absurd...--Helo87

I'd like to know where that figure came from. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 20:33, 20 December 2007 (CST)

Yes, it's from the Miniseries. Boomer says something like "You aren't the one trying to land 50 tons of Raptor". The figure always seemed way too high to me. Something for a footnote to point out. --Serenity 01:04, 21 December 2007 (CST)

FWIW, the exact quote (if memory serves) is "You're not the one out there trying to land 50 tons of Raptor on a moving platform" (not sure about the platform part). Boomer says it when she and Tyrol have their fake argument before it's revealed that they have a relationship. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 05:50, 21 December 2007 (CST)

Well, in any case I don't think its meant to be taken literally. For all we know, Grace Park ad-libbed the line (according to Eick, very little of the miniseries' scripted dialog came out like it was written) and that within the context of the conversation its not meant to be accurate. There's simply no way that a Raptor weighs 50 tons; 15 maybe, but not 50. Is deletion the way to go here? --Helo87

Well, it was spoken in the miniseries, so it's technically canonical information. For all we know, the Raptor may be 50 tons, but may have some sort of synthetic gravity techno-gizmo that reduces that weight. As for how we deal with it, we should definitely put where that figure came from in a footnote. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 15:53, 21 December 2007 (CST)

I'm not saying that we should remove it. But add something like "Give its size, this figure seems unrealistically high.". It's really too small to weigh that much. --Serenity 16:23, 21 December 2007 (CST)

Yeah, adding that bit of analysis is fine, as so long as we have the figure sourced.-- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 16:34, 21 December 2007 (CST)

You know, I would imagine that on a spaceship, weight is not so important as mass. Since all the gravity on a battlestar is artificial, weight is kind of a superfluous quantity anyways.--OrionFour 19:21, 22 December 2007 (CST)

I see someone added the quote, but I'm not entirely sure about the end of it ("moving platform" or "moving hangar deck" or something entirely different). Could someone rewatch that part (I don't have my copy of the Miniseries handy and won't for a few days). --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 17:15, 21 December 2007 (CST)

Well, how about we put down 15 tons? Its arguable that Grace Park was actually going for that number (or that it was written that way) but while saying her lines she said 50 instead of 15. She speaks the line pretty quickly...--Helo87

(reseting indentation level to base) Here's what we need to do. Firstly, we need to find out what the subtitles say. If the subtitles say 15 instead of 50, then we can go with the subtitles. On the other hand, if the subtitles also give that 50 figure, then we have to quote it, even if it sounds absurd. We're not here to rewrite the series' history every time we see something that doesn't jive with our understanding of the world around us.

If 50 is what she says -- and is confirmed by said subtitles -- then we stick with the 50 ton figure she gave. As I said, for all we know they have some sort of technological thingamajiggie that allows the ship to fly with that weight. Hell, how much does an FTL drive weigh anyway? Who knows?

However, what we can and should do is provide a piece of analysis noting why this doesn't seem likely, citing real-world examples as appropriate. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 17:05, 22 December 2007 (CST)

I agree that we shouldn't just change it. But the issue is that it shouldn't weigh that much in the first place, not that it couldn't fly. Anyways, the article includes a footnote about it now. --Serenity 17:33, 22 December 2007 (CST)

Non-Colonial Fleet Raptors

In the Plan several non-standard color Raptors appear. On Picon's harbor there appears a green white Raptor. On Caprica and also in Picon are emergency rescue Raptors colored red and white. The different colors could indicate other agencies using the Raptor. Indicating the Raptor is not for the Colonial Fleet exclusively. --RedWolf 16:39, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

War-era Raptor retired?

There's a line in the section about the B&C Raptor being retired before the end of the war, going off of the Razor Flashbacks. Should we really be treating the portions that didn't make it into the final movie as reliable, especially considering how much of them has already been overridden by B&C (like the last mission of the war being Adama's first time in combat, or the TOS-throwback uniforms, or the unchanged hangar deck and raptor design)?-- David cgc 18:46, 22 November 2012 (EST)

Even if you take their absence in Razor to mean there were absolutely none left on Galactica, it doesn't mean in any way that they'd been retired, all that can be discerned is what we see, i.e. that the other Raptor is in service. Real world example: F-18s are still in service alongside F-18Es. YIIMM 03:37, 23 November 2012 (EST)