Alpha Wing Starfury Squadron
Alpha Wing, "The Flying Nightmares", was commissioned in 2256, and is the earliest of Babylon 5's Starfury Squadrons. The squadron uses the Mitchell-Hyundyne SA-23E Starfury Aurora variant. Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova is taking you on a guided tour.
Sir, I gather you wanted to know all about the EarthForce fighters we have stationed here. Here you go, we have some SecureCam pics from the station's exterior. That picture there is my own personalised ship - you can see the Russian Star and Eagle painted over the top wing. It's a tradition with pilots here to decorate their ships. This one's the Russian Star. We have other custom paint-jobs, such as the Sea Witch and the Flying Tiger. But I digress.
Mitchell-Hyundyne SA-23E Starfury
The basic SA-23E Starfury is a single-seater fighter, the latest upgrade of the SA-23 Aurora that we used during the Earth-Minbari war. It has a wingspan of 18 meters, but is only 8.5 meters tall and 10 meters long from nose to tail; so it's basically a flying wing. It's perhaps one of the most manoeuverable fighters in its class, due to the multivector thrusters positioned on the four wing pylons you can see here. The engines are Beigle-Bryant microfusion-powered particle thrust drives, with vectored thrust bled off for reverse, vertical and lateral displacement. The tines extending at the rear are ion contrail suppressors - they help to neutralize and dissipate the charged particle trails left by the thrusters.
The Starfury's a well-balanced and agile craft; and pretty solid too. It isn't designed for atmospheric flight - you can see that the wings are just box-pylons to support the thrusters - but it is one of the best space superiority fighters around. As for longevity, well the manual says you can last for one hour at maximum burn, though obviously you wouldn't want to do that. On patrol, we accelerate up to a cruising speed and just coast along to the destination. The maximum useful range is about 70,000 klicks.
In the Cockpit
Actually, you might not realise it, but the pilot more or less stands up inside the cockpit module. Here's a picture taken by one of the MaintTechs in the Cobra Bay - I think that's Alpha Wing. You can clearly see the pilot in an upright position. It's not as stupid as it sounds - once you're dropped out of the Cobra Bay doors, your ship's in free-fall and you're weightless. But as soon as you fire up the rear thrusters, you get slammed into the acceleration couch behind you. It feels like you're lying down on the floor, while in fact you're racing forwards. So actually it's more comfortable for taking the gees that the main engines put out. At maximum thrust, we can get an acceleration equivalent to well over ten gees.
Fighting Characteristics
You have to remember that we really push the envelope to keep up with the different physical tolerances of other alien races. The Minbari, for example, can keep fighting after massive blood loss; and the Centauri pilots are crazy - they'll pull turns that black them out, just on the off-chance of waking up inside the enemy's turning circle.
The cockpit was also designed to give the pilot maximum forward all-round visibility; and from that standing position, you can get a feel for what's going on at your feet as well as over your head. I know there's the voice-activated on-board computer and the heads-up display, but nothing beats a mark 1 eyeball when you're fighting instinctively. You're fighting other pilots, not machines, at the end of the day.
Would you care to visit the next bay now? Just follow the EarthForce signs.
Click on the Starfury fighter to continue to Beta Squadron.