[aldo_14]

But wouldn't bombers make a lot more 'sense' scale wise if they were 2-man?  Because  if you scale even a fairly large person to 'em', there's still a lot of room in the cockpit.

[pyro-manic]

I dunno. All FS ships have cockpits that seem way too big. Look at something like a Tornado, which is a similar size to some FS fighters, and compare the canopy sizes. FS ships are incredibly massive, so I think they'd probably look a bit odd if they had canopies similar to current aircraft. You could probably fit 3 or 4 people in the bigger bombers - the Ursa is IIRC 40+ metres long. That's pushing airliner size, so you could have a large crew in them easily....

[karajorma]

Who says they aren't? Maybe the second in the players bomber is just under the same radio silence orders that Alpha 1 has

[aldo_14]

No, the fighters are more or less ok.  Roomy, admittedly, but ok.  But the bombers are sodding huge, I've discovered.... if you don't have 2 pilots then you end up with either a stupidly tiny looking cockpit or a near-empty one.

[Marauder]

I remember reading in the FS Reference bible about how Lt. Ash was in a two man bomber...and he died..heh...I agree, it would make more sense scale wise...notice while flying along an Orion you can do it pretty damn quickly!

[phatosealpha]

Perhaps the cockpits are so large because they need extra equipment in them to keep the pilot at full awareness/conscious/alive when jumping into subspace or doing things like 40 G turns with afterburners full attempting to avoid the impending shockwave of a detonating destroyer?

Personally, I'd like to imagine that they're roomy so they can function as escape pods, but that's primarily to ease my conscience about losing every single wingman I've ever been assigned.

[FireCrack]

Originally posted by phatosealpha
Perhaps the cockpits are so large because they need extra equipment in them to keep the pilot at full awareness/conscious/alive when jumping into subspace or doing things like 40 G turns with afterburners

In a bomber but not a fighter?

[Carl]

Originally posted by phatosealpha
Perhaps the cockpits are so large because they need extra equipment in them to keep the pilot at full awareness/conscious/alive when jumping into subspace or doing things like 40 G turns with afterburners full attempting to avoid the impending shockwave of a detonating destroyer?

Freespace fighters are slower than WWII fighters. i doubt one could ever come close to 40 G's.

[Liberator]

And like WW2 aircraft, they need frelling huge canopies to keep track of the enemy.  It's also quite possible that there are co-pilots in the bombers, but AFAIK, it's SOP for the pilot to handle all official radio communication with the CIC/TIC/Air Boss.  The rio just watches the guages, watches for enemies, and help keeps the pilot focused during combat.

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by Marauder
I remember reading in the FS Reference bible about how Lt. Ash was in a two man bomber...and he died..heh...I agree, it would make more sense scale wise...notice while flying along an Orion you can do it pretty damn quickly!

Was Ash's ship a bomber?  I seem to remember that it looked almost identical to an Apollo, if it actually wasn't; it certainly wasn't any of the bombers in the game.  If it was an Apollo, and not a bomber, that might lend some credence to the copilot theory.

[Andreas]

Check the FS1 intro, Lt.Ash has a co-pilot in his Apollo, on the back, but he's dead. There are also some renderings of the Apollo cockpit done, which clearly show that there indeed is a place for a co-pilot. Maybe he handles the communications or somesuch.

http://www.descent-freespace.com/goodies/gallery/cockpit/cok06.jpg

This one is definately from the backseat:
http://www.descent-freespace.com/goodies/gallery/cockpit/cok13.jpg

I could post more, but check the page yourself.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Mongoose

Was Ash's ship a bomber?  I seem to remember that it looked almost identical to an Apollo, if it actually wasn't; it certainly wasn't any of the bombers in the game.  If it was an Apollo, and not a bomber, that might lend some credence to the copilot theory.

The ref bible states Ash is "in one of the two-man bombers"; it's never referred to there as being an Apollo (despite the obvious similarity; it's virtually identical).  Either the concept for the Apollo class/role wasn't finalised when the cutscene was written, or it is supposed to be some form of variant.

Albeit I don't really understand why you'd send a bomber wing on a routine patrol, rather than interceptors or scout fighters.

[Striker]

I think they probably just changed it from bomber to fighter. The GT(V)A rarely does variants; the only one we've seen IIRC is Artemis DH and it stayed a bomber.

[aldo_14]

True, but we also know the Fs games don't - can't - show every ship in operation by the GTVA.  The Angel scout, for example.  So i think it's possible an Apollo varient could have been used alongside the 'heavy' Athena during the 14-year war.

[NGTM-1R]

I suspect a big bit of it is pilot comfort, making those long pointless patrols more bearable.

And maybe they were nice enough to actually give the bomber pilots a toilet, instead of some "relief tube" rig.

[karajorma]

Considering that Kappa 3 survived in the nebula for weeks they probably have a kitchen and sleeping area in the back of the fighters

[Striker]

Yeah what was up with him living through that? How did he not run out of supplies/get blown to hell by Shivans?

[aldo_14]

Hibernation.  They cross-breed humans with hamster genes for longevity; it's in the ref bible, page 40.

[FireCrack]

kappa 3 probably had emergency rations or somthing. I'm preeety sure they stock the fighters with things like that in the case of getting lost/havinc a crash landing. Like the hercules in the intro.

[Striker]

And to think, that herc pilot's little hologram gizmo lasted for 35 years...