Landing bay (RDM)

A battlestar's landing bay is the interior of a flight pod, where smaller craft, primarily Vipers and Raptors, approach and land on the battlestar. Each landing bay is served by a hangar deck located adjacent or below the bay. On original battlestars such as Galactica, the landing bays are open for landing only when the flight pods are extended. When original battlestars make a Jump, the flight pods are retracted and landings are not possible. On advanced battlestars such as Pegasus, landings can be done at any time except (logically) at the moment of a Jump.

On Galactica, landing and docking procedures for larger ships, as was done for Laura Roslin's transport, Colonial Heavy 798, involve the ship landing and remaining in the landing bay, connected to Galactica by airlocks, and, likely, power and maintenance umbilicals (Miniseries). Only Raptors and Vipers are taken down by the landing bay platforms to the hangar deck.

For Vipers, normal landing procedure aboard Galactica is a complete hands-on approach from the stern; this culminates in a soft landing, using only manuevering thrusters for minimal relative speed, on a platform where the Viper's magnetic landing gear lock to the platform, which then descends into the hangar deck. Before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, other battlestars almost exclusively used computer assistance for normal landings (Miniseries). Pegasus has four landing bays, two on each side, laterally dissected through the port and starboard pods. Raptors land in a similar manner to Vipers, but, unlike Vipers, are also launched from the battlestar from the landing bay.

In time-critical situations like preparation for a jump in the presence of the enemy, pilots perform combat landings. With no time to touch down slowly and precisely, craft enter at significant relative speed and skid across the bay on their landing gear until halted by friction and their magnetic landing skids. This is very structurally dangerous, as repeated combat landings will lead to divets in the floor of the landing bay which need to be pounded out; this, as well as added wear to the Vipers themselves, particularly their landing gear, makes combat landings expensive in terms of maintenance time (33).

So far, only the port landing bay on Galactica can be used as the starboard landing bay was converted into a gift shop in anticipation of Galactica's transformation into a museum. The starboard landing bay was violently depressurized when a Cylon Heavy Raider with a boarding party of Centurions crashed there (Scattered). Galactica's starboard landing bay and flight pod appear to remain unused as of the end of Season 2 of the Re-imagined Series.