How does the patrol corvette land?

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Greetings,
I have a simple and perhaps slightly silly question... how does the type T patrol corvette land?

Does it:

A) use the lower vertical fins on the wingtips as rear landing legs?

B) fold the vertical fins and extend landing gear?

C) not land (I.e. despite being streamlined and relatively small, it cannot in fact land without a special berth available)

I’m thinking that A does place the primary airlock and cargo bay access very high above the ground, especially since they are both one deck up, but in a world of grav tech this might not be a big issue.

Any thoughts, opinions, official artwork?

[Reynard]

Being streamlined doesn't mean you have to land just have the capability of atmospheric flight. It still can pursue other craft planetside and has VTOL to hover in place as long as the fuel holds up. Both the ship's boat and G/carrier are flight capable and can launch and dock with the corvette in flight whether low orbit or tree top level.

[AnotherDilbert]

It's clearly not considered, either by the exterior design or the deck plans.


TNE Core

I would assume the ship can land. Option B sounds most practical. As you say it still leaves the hatches high off the ground.


If we moved Engineering to the main deck and the cargo hold to the lower deck it might be more practical? Add a cargo lift between the decks so that we can embark/debark either to the ground or via the boat.

[AnotherDilbert]

And theoretically I would like to garage the GCarrier close to the boat, so that we can deploy the vehicle with the boat.

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Since it used an interialess gravitic drive, it can hover in place, so it just maneuvers over the landing pad, hovers and then lowers slowly into position.

The streaminling and fins etc. look cool and all, but are really only needed for high-speed atmospheric maneuvering.

[Old School]

Looking at the Mongoose design, I would say to have folding tips (or simply no vertical tips at all) and landing gear. As far the airlock goes, I would say simply drop the airlock from the main deck to the lower deck, and/or assume that primary ingress/egress when on land is from a ramp at the back that leads into the main deck cargo bay.

This ship and the gazelle really bug me. Both are poorly designed (I realize Mongoose is holding true to the original designs as much as possible).

[phavoc]

Common sense designs don't look as cool as the ones we get. I don't see the patrol corvette landing. The fins, and even the wings, are relatively useless to a starship. And if the ships were to be doing some frontier refueling they are still unnecessary.

The inclusion of the G-Carrier allows it orbital to surface capabilities, but since it's primary function is patrolling space it would simply dock with another vessel or station (or be near enough for a craft to shuttle crew and supplies to/from it) when not out on patrol maneuvers.

IF the desire was for it to be landable, then it would be possible to make the lower fins fold up into the wings and for a minimal tricycle landing gear. A landing stairway could come out of the ship, or perhaps a rolling stairway be used like they do on aircraft or the space shuttle.

[Old School]

If I were designing it the G Carrier would go in the boat. Frees up room for other things, and if you're chasing someone down to the surface, you'll need to be in the boat if you want to catch them.

[paltrysum]

It has long, spindly landing gear. Like praying mantis legs.

[ShawnDriscoll]

I just have the fins fold when on land.

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Thanks for the input everyone!

While I do agree that the Type T has enough tools to not need to be able to land, I prefer if it can, so that's how I'll play them

While spindly mantis legs would definitely be interesting, I feel that folding fins and 'regular' landing gear is the way to do it.

A ramp or ladder would still be needed for both airlock and main cargo bay, but at least they won't have to cover a ~10 m vertical distance if the fins fold and the ship rests with lower deck close to the ground.

Swapping Engineering and Cargo would be an interesting change.... It would make the cargo area more accessible when landed and it'd also place the engines on the middle deck... Yes, could definitely work!

Having the GCarrier closer to the boat or even stored aboard the boat would simplify things, and speed up marine deployments. There are of course both pros and cons if carrying it aboard the boat, but in a docking space next to the boat... Flexible.

[Condottiere]

[baithammer]

Or the tips can rotate upward, which would give enough clearance for landing gear.

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Or the tips can rotate upward, which would give enough clearance for landing gear.

That could work too. Come to think about it, the entire wing might fold upwards, just like on many carrier-based aircraft today.

Looking at the picture on p.136 of High Guard, it does look like the wing could fold just outside of the air intakes, before the blue section starts.

[paltrysum]

Or the tips can rotate upward, which would give enough clearance for landing gear.

That actually sounds like the best idea. Folding under is not a good visual and would expose the wings to breakage when landing in less than ideal conditions. Perhaps they rotate upward and then fold 90º.

[Reynard]

Not seeing it in many illustration but there may be an indent that the wing section goes flush and way above the lower deck as well as the extended landing struts.

[HalC]

why does the wing have to fold at all? If it rotates 90 degrees counter-clockwise, its "straight" edges (trailing in the original picture) now become landing surfaces. Truth is - I would see that as one more "thing" that can go wrong in battle to the extent that if the stabilizers (if that is what they are) would be locked into one setting or another - making it potentially difficult to change from its orientation back to where it should be.

Frankly? The only reason I can think of - for having surfaces like that, are for atmosphere-flow reasons (Ie control surfaces). It is one thing to be able to move in any direction, any "axis" in space by means of thrusters, but I have to wonder how effective those thrusters would be in an atmosphere? Traveller glosses over such design features entirely it seems.

Ever wonder who much force is required to get a vessel like the patrol cruiser to swap ends quickly? When dealing with 20 minute turns, quickly could be as slow as 1 minute. But when dogfighting in the atmosphere, quickly is going to have to be a wee bit faster than 60 seconds

Of course, there is perhaps one answer that might seem obvious...

Who said that the patrol cruiser in the illustration is flying right side up? In space, there is no down. What if the patrol cruiser in the picture is oriented such that its belly is "up" in the picture, and its topside is down? Instinctively, one would presume that the flatter surface is the down side, and the upside would be anything but flat - but one solution is to state simply that the illustration shows the ship flying with its belly upwards from the observer's point of view.

In all - a good question.

The more I look at the fins, the more I have to wonder. If you look at the starboard fin (ie right side of the ship assuming that it is right side up in the illustration), the fin has three lateral lines near its lower extremity. Any of those would be nice potential "fold points" if you will. But when you look at its opposing fin for the "interior facing side" (ie the side closest to the hull), you do not see those same three lines. The interior facing side of the fin shows itself to be relatively smooth in the sense that two of the horizontal lines are absent. That would imply that the center of the three lines is the only one that could potentially fold (in my opinion).

So, in the end, short of rotating rather than folding, I can't really see this fin design being functional. Hell, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around why it even exists.