Aravind Class Scout/recon

[Graham Kennedy]

The standard recon/scout unit in service with the Coalition since the Tain war, the Aravind class is designed for a range of scouting duties. Essentially their primary mission is unchanged from that of their predecessors; to proceed ahead of a ship or fleet, locate the enemy, determine their numbers and strength, and relay that information back home. In addition they can conduct defensive patrols, watching for approaching enemy ships or formations, or survey midspace conditions on a planned route. They can also conduct surveys of planetary systems and individual planets.

The craft is large, almost equal to the Massacre in size. It is festooned with ariels and sensor domes; from the big long range high resolution active scanner on the nose to the deployable towed passive arrays carried in the pylon-tip pods, the Aravind carries a whole suite of receivers and emitters of all kinds.

The four man crew are carried in two ejection pods. The Aravind has a cruise speed of 464 kc, with a maximum of 725. Range at 464 kc is over 1,500 klh.

[Mikey]

I like it. Very utilitarian, and reminiscent of modern real-life recon aircraft.

[Teaos]

I find it odd it still has wheels. I'd think this far in the future they'd have something else. Anti gravity or landing pads.

[Mikey]

Hmmm... good point. I hadn't even noticed. Perhaps these craft arent VTOL-capable?

[Graham Kennedy]

They aren't VTOL capable, no. Why would they need to be?

It's a bit of a bugbear of mine actually; almost all sci-fi fighters and shuttles sit of metal skis, which are easy to build on your model but are horribly impractical. Wheels are massively practical things; they don't consume power, you aren't adding yet another high tech system like an anti-grav unit that can go wrong (and drop the damn fighter onto some poor unsuspecting guy when it does) or fail from battle damage; you can just push/drag your fighter around if you need to.

[Monroe]

I agree. Why fix something that works fine?

[Graham Kennedy]

How long has the wheel existed - 10,000 years? 20,000 years? To suggest that it is going to die out in the next thousand seems absurd to me.

Plus, as a purely aesthetic thing, I like that my stuff doesn't have skis like everybody else.

[Teaos]

If you want to be different give it a bunch of tentacles.

[Mikey]

Maybe that's why I hadn't noticed the weheels. They don't stand out to me because they seem completely normal.

[Sionnach Glic]

Woo! Wheels! Finaly, a practical design in a small fighter sized ship.
Wheels are usefull, in that they don't need to be powered to let you land.