Zeta Wing Starfury Squadron
Zeta Wing, "The Air Cavalry", was commissioned in 2258, delivered as a special favour from Earth Alliance President Santiago, who strongly supported the Babylon Project. The squadron uses the Mitchell-Hyundyne SA-23E Starfury Aurora variant. In the company of Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova, you have taken a car round to the next Cobra Bay arm, and entered Zeta Squadron's Ops room.
This is the home of our latest Starfury Squadron, Zeta Wing. President Santiago presented the Squadron to us just a couple of months ago, when he came to visit Babylon 5. It was a real honour to meet him.
Presitential Escort Starfury
Here's an instantly recognisable Starfury, one that I'm sure you'll have seen on ISN - it's part of the Presidential Escort Flight. You can see the seal of the Earth Alliance painted on the upper wing. I guess I like the blue, white and gold colour scheme - it makes a difference from the utility grey used for most of our ships. One of our Zeta Wing pilots used to fly escort duty. It's a sought-after posting, you know, the fighter jockeys just love to score points off each other; and flying for the President counts for the big money. But I'll bet that it gets boring after a while - just the ceremonial without any real action. I suppose it's a good thing that nothing ever really happens on escort duty.
The Presidential Escort Starfury is basically a standard SA-23E in other respects. Four of them accompany EarthForce One when the President goes touring in-system, or visits the colonies at Proxima or Beta Durani. Mostly, it's just flying the flag for the Earth Alliance, but you never know - trouble might be round the corner; and you'd better be safe than sorry. They're much tighter about Presidential security these days, since those Earth First terrorists started branding aliens. That's stirring up all manner of resentment here, by the way.
Earth Force One
Here's a nice flypast by EarthForce One. You can see how the blue livery of the Presidential Escort Flight matches the official presidential colours. EarthForce One is a modified cargo transport design, with the same particle thrust engines, but with a large rotating habitat module added for the VIP passengers. The ship has quite a long endurance, with those large fuel tanks and solar arrays for recharging all the electrical systems. The ship uses the jumpgates to travel further afield, since it isn't big enough to have jump engines.
EarthForce One will typically carry President Santiago and Vice President Clark, together with all their staff. I hear President Santiago's visting Babylon 5 again next year, after he's settled the new alien immigration policy on Earth. That should be interesting, and might help to calm things down a bit. He's a decent enough man, even though I'd rather the top job went to Marie Crane. At least Santiago supported the Babylon Project from the beginning. Some people in his administration seem to be constantly trying to shut us down.
Offensive and Defensive Systems
Oh, it looks like Zeta Squadron are back from their patrol, Sir. You can see them coming through the jumpgate on this monitor here. They have been a vital addition to our station defences; and we have been able to offer more protection to shipping travelling through Grid Epsilon as a result. I hope the Senators back home realise how this increases trade through Babylon 5 and improves our profile with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds.
Well, that's the last of the Cobra Bays, Sir. I hope you enjoyed your inspection. And if you would put in a good word to Earth Central about that extra funding for Beta Squadron? Thank you.
Would you like to see the Cobra Bays again?
Click on the Starfury fighter to return to Alpha Squadron.