Starfighter accelerations

[McC]

Since he's obviously moving at constant speed in the trench, should we infer that "full throttle" just meant that they would use full throttle for the initial approach to the trench? There are a lot of reasons why it might be dangerous to go really fast inside a trench. Also, while he said "That oughta keep those fighters off our backs", it obviously didn't, and Vader was able to catch up to them easily. It only kept them clear during the initial approach.

I suppose that's a good way to interpret it. "We're going in full throttle": a quick surge of acceleration to get away from the main body of defensive fighters and dive into the trench, which would then be a difficult maneuver to match.

It's also an open question as to where Luke, Biggs, and Wedge were at the time they initiated their run. They could've been quite far from the trench itself, so a burst of full throttle might have pulled them out of their current furball and toward the trench run itself.

Huzzah! Five years and it's finally put to bed. Thanks, DW.

[Connor MacLeod]

It's only a problem insofar as I have no idea what "full throttle" actually means in the context Luke uses it. Generally speaking, "full throttle" implies that you're not holding anything back from your thrust capability. It's rather clearly not "full linear thrust capability," which is what one would normally assume.

My point is is that its going to be very context sensitive when you're talking about a craft that has FTL/open space AND atmospheric capability. I dont think we have anything IRL that wiould even quite compare.

And it snot just "atmoshpere/open space" changing the context of "full throttle", it could be other matters. What about fuel supply? Why would we assume they neccesarily run at max acceleration under every circumstance? They certainly won't in an atmosphere, for one thing, but conserving fuel supply is ALWAYS going to be a consideration. In the Yavin context, we know they had incomplete munitions loads, its quite possible they didnt have complete fuel supplies, or they burned part of it up getting there (Mike's already calced they pulled multi hundred/thousand gee accels minimum from Yavin to DS already, remember.)

Atmospheric flight can also introduce different contexts: EG supersonic vs hypersonic travel - I doubt you'd want ot pull mach 20+ over a city for one thing.

[Balrog]

Slightly OT:

both B5 Starfuries and BSG Vipers lack Inertial Dampeners/Acceleration Compensators to my knowledge, (at least the old BSG Vipers seemed to, when the pilots reacted to the G-Forces as they launched, Haven't watched much of the nBSG) dunno if Mimbari fighters do or not but most B5 fighters such as Narn, Earth Force and Centauri lack Inertial dampeners.

I don't think nBSG have them either; I recall the episode where Kera was recovering from injury, and Adama using her exercise equipment to explain about how she couldn't handle single-digit Gs of acceleration typical in dogfights and so was grounded. But the Minbari do, which is why they were able to, as the kids say, "WTFpwn" Starfuries during the war.

But yeah, going full throttle to the trench and then slowing down works within context. Or perhaps he meant to go max acceleration all the way, but once he got into the trench he realized it was a Bad Idea© and so slowed down.

[Ford Prefect]

We've never seen a pair of SW starfighters dogfighting in open space, have we? It seems that they're always near something: asteroids, capships, a Death Star, etc.

I'm pretty sure there are some relatively open space engagements in the X-Wing novels, but as a novel it is pretty much impossible to judge what that realy looks like.

I don't think nBSG have them either; I recall the episode where Kera was recovering from injury, and Adama using her exercise equipment to explain about how she couldn't handle single-digit Gs of acceleration typical in dogfights and so was grounded.

It's Hand of God. He demonstrates with three gravities, which her leg can't handle, then follows up by saying 'this is half of what you'll be pulling in combat'. Starbuck also implies that a Viper can kill its pilot just from acceleration, but she was probably just scaring the nuggets.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Linear acceleration is not the same as maneuverability and Ford is right. Current Perryverse Earth capships can accelerate at 10,000 gees and that's about a TENTH of what they USED to be able to do. Outmaneuver every other universe my ass.

In the current cycle 220 km/s² is the new standard. But in the Perryverse FTL was always much more important than STL, while sublight acceleration was massively reduced tactical FTL was not really degraded(unlike strategic FTL). In system there is not that much of a difference between 1*10^6 times the speed of light and 80*10^6 times the speed of light. Staying in realspace during massive battles for more than a few seconds(unless you got a ship which outtechs/outsizes the enemy by quite a bit) as been an instant ticket to the grave for about 500 issues or more.