Landing bay (RDM)

A landing bay is where smaller craft, primarily Vipers and Raptors, approach and land on battlestars. Each landing bay is in a flight pod adjacent to the hangar deck that services it.

Original battlestars such as Galactica have one landing bay per flight pod, and they are not open for landing during jumps, as the flight pods are retracted, blocking entrance. On Mercury class battlestars such as Pegasus, each side's flight pod is partitioned into two stacked landing bays, and they are always open, as the flight pods are fixed.

On Galactica, landing and docking procedures for larger ships, e.g. 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 aft; Pegasus accepts approachs from fore. Both culminate in a soft landing, using only manuevering thrusters for minimal relative speed, on a platform to which the Viper's magnetic landing gear lock; the platform then descends into the hangar deck. Before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, other battlestars almost exclusively used computer assistance for normal landings (Miniseries). 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. 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).