Questions about fighter planes...

[sparkthatbled]

Okay, so my Anime Addenture thread has somehow mutated into my participating in NaNoWriMo, taking my "Riding On Fire" thread and turning it into a fanfiction novel. I have most of the storyline beats laid out in my head, and my ducks are more or less in a row. I only have a couple of annoying questions to settle...
First of all, for people who might have had more experience with Fred Herriot and the Senior Year universe than I do, and to save me skimming through the fanfic pages: is there any proper description of the spaceships of the other races, aside from the canon ones like the Oni, Fukunokami and Ellsians? Or more specifically, has Fred ever said what a Yeshirite, Noukuiite or even a Zephyrite space fighter craft would look like? I have a good idea of a Sagussan Gladiator in my head, at it would probably resemble the Solenoid fighters in Gall Force, but little else.
Second of all, is there any fiction out there that deals with outer space dogfighting? Or modern dog fighting in general? It doesn't have to be realistic, as this is a universe based around Urusei Yatsura, but I'd like a point of reference besides the Rogue Squadron novels to try and write dogfighting scenes with.
Finally, I'm looking for suggestions on names for the various races' space craft. I've figured on using Japanese styled names for the Urusians and the Fukunokami, but I'm kinda stuck on the others. This is difficult, as the Yeshirites and the Noukiites are going to play major roles in my story...

[hmelton]

Try searching over at spacebattles.com they have a lot on "spacebattles" both in discussion threads and in the creativity section.

http://forums.spacebattles.com/

If you join and start a thread in one of the forum subheadings be warned spacebattles can get rough, especially over a hot point such as fighters in space.

hmelton

God bless

[zojojojo]

i seem to recall red storm rising by tom clancy had a few dogfights (f15 vs mig29) and some of the later honor harrington books had "space fighters" and the attendant dogfights
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
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If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

[M Fnord]

First of all, for people who might have had more experience with Fred Herriot and the Senior Year universe than I do, and to save me skimming through the fanfic pages: is there any proper description of the spaceships of the other races, aside from the canon ones like the Oni, Fukunokami and Ellsians?

Last I recall there wasn't much in the way of description of much of anything, really. Herriot skimps on description unless it involves lesbians.

My recollection could be off, though - it's been a while.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Jorlem]

Hmm...
The Irresponsible Captain Tylor had space fighters. Well, it had one, plus a troop dropship. That never made much sense to me, but there is is. The anime was based off a series of light novels, so if you're looking for written descriptions of space based fighter combat, you might be able to find a translated version of those. I'm sure that they exist somewhere on the internet.
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[khagler]

The vast of fictional space fighter combat is just air combat acted out in space. If you're going to follow that trend, I'd suggest skipping fiction and going straight to the source. "Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering" by Robert Shaw is widely regarded as the definitive text on the subject in the real world.

[Bob Schroeck]

It might also help to do what George Lucas did for Star Wars -- watch old war movies.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Epsilon]

sparkthatbled wrote:
Second of all, is there any fiction out there that deals with outer space dogfighting? Or modern dog fighting in general? It doesn't have to be realistic, as this is a universe based around Urusei Yatsura, but I'd like a point of reference besides the Rogue Squadron novels to try and write dogfighting scenes with.

Quite a bit. I'd suggest Macross (the original and Macross Plus and apparently Frontier is quite good) which all features quite a bit of dogfighting in space (with transformable mecha, but its still basically dogfighting). Much of the Gundam series also features extensive space dogfighting sequences (again with robots, but the shape of the ships hardly matters when they basically just act as  high-speed weapons platforms).
For non-anime look to Battlestar Galactica (reboot) which featured some interesting space dogfights. Space: Above and Beyond was a TV series that also revolved around such dogfights extensively. Babylon 5 had more than a few massive spacebattles which involved dogfights as well (though the SFX looks really dated now).
If you're looking for some modern dogfights but not in space there are the old standbuys, Top Gun, Airwolf etc.
You mentioned the Rogue Squadron novels and you could do what the writers of those novels did. They basically took everything about spacebattles from the X-Wing and Tie Fighter spaceflight sims and converted them to text format. So find a cool space dogfight (or regular dogfight) video game and use that (StarFox, Wing Commander, Ace Combat etc).
The History Channel also has a series called Dogfights which features recreations of a lot of historical dogfights. You can even watch some of them on the website.
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Epsilon

[sparkthatbled]

Thanks for the help, I think I've got a good idea of what to do about writing dogfighting scenes...

The mention of Macross and Ace Combat are good, because I'm a big fan of both series, and I want to work in themes from both series into my story, such as the characters begin able to intercept enemy chatter over the radios, or getting nicknames as they become known and feared across the cosmos, and maybe dump some Zentraedi and Meltrandi in there as well, because of the comedy value of the crew having to deal with a macronised Zentraedi crawling around in their ship.

While I have the time, though, I should probably skim some of the Senior Year chapters to see if there's anything I could use...

[Dartz]

Uh... one thing.

There's no air in space. Most spacecraft maneuvre according to Newton's laws. They need to use thrusters to change direction or change velocity. And they don't have to be travelling in the same direction as their pointing either. nBSG shows this quite well sometimes. The Vipers have maneuvering Jets, and aerodynamic controls for when they fly in an atmo'.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Logan Darklighter]

I'll second what Dartz said, and add Babylon 5's Starfury fighters as a visual for considering. 

I'll never forget when I watched the very first regular episode of Babylon 5 and saw Commander Sinclair in a Starfury. He had a Raider on his "6" lining up a shot. If this was an atmospheric fighter, or a Star Wars X-Wing, or even a Macross Valkyrie, what you'd see next would be some maneuvering for position, corkscrewing through space, or even some kind of abrupt "cobra" breaking maneuver that puts the enemy out front of the protagonists guns. 

But no. In that first episode, Sinclair just coolly - in one smooth maneuver - cuts his main port thrusters, engages the equally strong rear port thrusters, and engages the opposite pairs of thrusters (rear facing starboard, forward facing port) an instant later to pivot his Starfury smartly 180 degrees in a split second and stop his spin and then blow the Raider out of space before the bastard even knew what to do next!

At which point I LEAPED from my seat, pointed a finger at the screen, and yelled "PHYSICS!!!!"


And let's face it, the Starfury is COOL. It's even cooler because it does all it's cool tricks while (as far as I can tell) obeying the known laws of physics. 


-Logan
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(Why yes, I really AM that much of a geek. Why do you ask?)
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[sparkthatbled]

Of course, the fighters the heroes are using are made to work in both air and space, so they can't be much like the Starfury. But the planes would have vectored thrusters and other tricks, once they figure out the "no friction in space" rule.

[khagler]

There was a later Starfury model called the Thunderbolt that was designed for atmospheric flight.

[zojojojo]

Of course, the fighters the heroes are using are made to work in both air and space, so they can't be much like the Starfury. But the planes would have vectored thrusters and other tricks, once they figure out the "no friction in space" rule.

if they can do anything besides go in a straight line in space, then they can do this to some degree.... i wish i could remember the book, but some hard-sf book i ran into years ago had the comment that, while the driving force in atmo is power (if you have more power, you can run away, catch up or whatever) the driving force in space is delta-v. i.e. the faster you can change the direction you're going the better, since there is really only one speed limit in space, it's just a question of how fast you get there
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
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If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

[Acyl]

I haven't actually read these myself, but I've got a buddy who likes to rant about how awful Stackpole's Rogue Squadron books are in depicting a fighter unit.
He's recommended Tom Clancy's NON-fiction books on the subject, 'Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing', and 'Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier'. From what I know of the series, these books are more general behind-the-scenes looks at life in a given military unit, but they should be equally useful as resources, right?
-- Acyl

[Norgarth]

As mentioned above, Babylon 5 has some pretty good space combat scenes, but another source of ideas for atmospheric combat, see if you can catch some episodes of Dogfights.

actually, here's a good B5 clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83U5Oupj1RI
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[sparkthatbled]

Another thing I figure... When our heroes get into space, they have a slight but crucial advantage when they discover the properties of a vacuum and how to fly inside it, because everybody else uses inertialess drives in their spacecraft and have been using them for hundreds of years, and so many enemy pilots don't know the difference between atmospheric and space combat. The only ones who could prove opposition are the Sagussans, due to genetic improvements, and the Volunteer Earth Defence Force, who are probably more familiar with space physics.

[Rod.H]

I too recommend watching some episodes of Dogfights, DVDs of it are avaliable, torrent's might be out there and youtube extracts are all ways probable.