Hands-on approach

As is quite obvious, all pilots need to land. As the saying goes, "What goes up, must come down."

What matters for a Colonial pilot is how they land, given the many kinds of spacecraft used in the Twelve Colonies. Some of the hardest of these ships to fly are the vessels of the Colonial military. Since landing on a battlestar is a very difficult feat requiring much practice, it seems that almost all battlestars opted to make landings easier through a series of computers that form an auto-landing system. Before the surprise Cylon Attack, the two choices to land on a typical battlestar were by automatic landing or a hands-on approach, or manually controlled landing.

Captain Lee Adama completes a hands-on approach in his Viper Mk. VII. (Credit: Sci-Fi Channel)

On battlestar Galactica, a hands-on landing is the only accepted landing procedure. The policy confused pilot Lee Adama when he was instructed to land his Viper Mk. VII manually. Chief Tyrol noted the landing policy to Captain Adama (Miniseries).

There are two kinds of hands-on approaches: the condition three-mode landing done by Lee Adama when viewers first meet his character in the Miniseries, or a high-speed combat landing into the flight pod.

Commander Adama has banned the use of auto-landing systems aboard Galactica, probably because it would involve the networking of computers that would send data to a ship's autopilot and guide it in for an automatic landing. Commander Adama had maintained (or renewed) the policy of non-networked computers on Galactica in the event of a new Cylon attack. Such automatic systems could be easily infiltrated by a Cylon virus (a tactic used in the first Cylon War). As it turned out, Adama's policy of keeping Galactica free of networked computers such as an auto-landing system was a key factor in Galactica's survival during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

A typical wireless conversation for a hands-on approach between the LSO and a pilot named "DeadMeat" might go like this:

LSO: "Green light for hands-on approach. DeadMeat, call the ball."

DeadMeat: "Copy. I have the ball."

"The ball" refers to a series of lights going from the back of the landing bay to the front. The pilot uses these lights to adjust his/her speed for a smooth landing. The phrase "I have the ball" confirms that the pilot is aligning or has aligned his ship's angle of attack and speed for a proper entry and landing.

Captain Aaron Kelly is the Landing Signal Officer, in charge of all flight operations on Galactica.

Re-imagined Series definition: officer responsible for flight operations of either a battlestar or battlestar group

Re-imagined Series definition: visual indicator used in a battlestar's Instrument Landing System during a hands-on approach (TRS: "Miniseries", "Act of Contrition", "Final Cut", "Black Market")