[RFC][IMG] Making the Peace(maker)

[Black Aeronaut]

eeeeeyeah.  SOP will be to unfold the wings after they're dropped... on simple account of there just not being enough room.

Eheheh... Mostly cause its my sans serif system default so thats what Gimp threw up.

And your exactly right about the way I was thinking Firvulag. Also
considering both a) shortening the overall canopy, b) moving the rear
seat slightly forward to allow for more 'fuel tankage' behind the pilot
and c) making some additional canopy changes to decrease the area that
has to be 'sealed' at the bottom of the access tube to allow for pilot
access

In regards to the font... I like Amarillo USAF.  It's perfect for Roughriders ships.
Hmmm...  Early model F-EZigs would probably have the enlarged fuel tank space... and even after Ben introduces Cool Cukes to their fleet, the F-EZigs will still need that extra bit of room to accomodate the reactors.
Something that I've given a bit of thought to is how atmosphere is handled inside the cockpits of RR fighter craft.  Simply put, it isn't.  Thing is, in space combat atmosphere can be a real liability.  Not only can your ship get punched full of holes, but it has a nasty tendency transfer energy in the forms of heat and kinetic force (shock waves).  And then there is the pain in the ass that it is to find leaks and patch them.  So instead, the pilots have lightly armored vacuum-rated flight suits inside completely voided cockpits.  They connect to the fighter for life support and have small emergency units in the back in case the pilot has to ditch.  And the suit itself is much easier to patch that the entire cockpit (which may hide a leak behind some instrument panel - thanks but no thanks).  Or hell, you can even go one step further and give the suits a two-part gel layer that automatically foams when the layer between the two is breached, forming an instant patch.
In atmo, the cockpits can be flooded with breathable air, but at least this way the cockpit-canopy seals do not have to be vacuum rated.
Peacemakers will be a different story.  Crew compartments will be pressurized, but in combat the crew will don suits and the compartments voided of air.  Crawl spaces in the wings will not be pressurized.

The
Zigs look good.  Although I wonder about the nose mounted coil-gun.  It
does look good there, but is there enough room for the barrel and
ammunition feed?  The Zig is a little over 5 meters long, and it
(potentially) only has one seat instead of the 2 a Long-EZ has, so
there's more room.  Hmm.  I think we can make it work like this.

In the nose?  I thought the coil guns were to be carried in a pod under the fuselage.  This would make the entire unit self-contained, and rearming can be as simple as swapping the pods out.  (Each Zig can have two coil gun pods.  When they get swapped for repair or rearming, the gunnery crew can do the actual work of repair/rearm when it's convenient.)