Fighter beys &c.

In message <01IGCA9XKD2W9GVUX8@avion.stsci.edu> SHADOW means never
> having to say you're sorry writes:

Wet naval analogies aren't always so bad, since they form the basis of the SF
cliches that drive FT. I feel obliged, however, to point out that one recent
(recent meaning 15 years ago) military campaign notably used impressed
merchant shipping as platforms for fighter aircraft to be IIRC transported in,
and flown from, at least in a CAP
role (rather than as a heavily laden bomb-truck requiring a runway).
Harriers, natch. Vacuum makes it rather tricky to clear the decks and
hop on/off/under a plane on deck tho'. OTOH there's no stall speed,
so it's all VTOL.

Tooling around with the descriptive design thing, I had occaision to
ponder many core FT rules/ideas and I did get to thinking about
fighters. I think there's much room in FT for the use of fighters to be much
more involved, and to make specialised carriers much more interesting,
particulary if they incorporate some of the fighter movement ideas floating
around. A basic "fighter bay" could be much as in FT now, and be fitted to
dreadnoughts and the like as a
multipurpose store/launch/recover facility. For carriers these
functions could be broken down. Specialised launch tubes could launch fighter
to much faster velocities than allowed for normal bays. Specialised recovery
systems could recover fighters with a greater tolerance. Combined this could
give carrier based fighters a greater effective operational radius tha normal
(because velocities would be higher). Storage bays could hold fighters in a
more efficient way (less mass) so that true carriers could have really serious
fighter complements. All with seperate display symbols and threshold rolls,
natch.

Parasite racks? I suggest that due to the neglegable maintainance
these fighters get that each group takes a 1-die hit before combat
to determine how many effectives survive the journey. A gamble, then.