Data Canister 894, X-Com Archives

[Skonar]

--- Data Canister 894, X-Com Archives. Technical briefing for SR77H 'Skyranger' light transport.

 

Vehicle Type - VTOL Aircraft, powered by 2 variable turbofan engines.

Weight, unloaded - 16 000 Kg

Maximum VTOL takeoff weight - 54 000 Kg

Maximum VTOL takeoff weight with one engine inoperable - 35 000 Kg

Maximum conventional takeoff weight - 58 000 Kg

Maximum conventional takeoff weight with one engine inoperable - 42 000 kg

Maximum fuel weight - 36 000 Kg

Cargo area - 15.8 m long, 3.2 m wide, 2.3m high.

Normal flight range - 14 000 Kilometres

Maximum speed - 1 450 Km/h

Cruise speed - 930 Km/h

Conventional takeoff field length - 1870 m

Conventional landing field length - 1440 m

 

Length - 32m

Wingspan - 16m

Height - 8m

 

Crew - One pilot and Copilot.

 

History of Design - In the 1970s, the old USSR began working towards creating a vehicle suitable for replacing helicopters in use for extremely long range special operations. More specifically, for use in depositing and supplying special operations groups in the United States of America.

Initial designs were unable to make the cross-global distances required, due to size and weight constraints. The most suitable version was unveiled in 1977, at an astronomical cost. The old USSR was forced to abandon the project for other, more important, methods of gaining ground in the cold war.

After the collapse of the USSR in the late eighties, the project was lost entirely.

When the X-Com project was hurriedly specced out, it was clear that no known aircraft could fulfil initial troop transport requirements. Several former KGB officers recalled the 'Skyranger' project, and the old designs were brought out as speedily as possible.

It was determined that with new state of the art materials and engines, the 'Skyranger' could operate as desired. The original moth balled Skyranger was brought out and re-fitted immediately in America, before being forwarded to X-Com. A small 'research' facility was then put together several kilometres outside of Moscow, which produces 'Prototypes' as X-Com requires them.

 

Description of Design - The SR77H is, at its heart, one of the most effective special operations transports avaliable.

The main positive aspect to the design is in its VTOL Capacity. Vents within the engine housings can, variably, redirect thrust to a number of nozzles on the undersides of the craft fuselage and wings, vented through ducts in the aircraft's sides. This system allows the vented exhaust from the system to pressurise all nozzles at once, and gradually switch the VTOL thrust over to regular thrust. Also, one engine being damaged does not ground this craft.

The design makes use of two sets of wings. The rear wings and stabilisers are set high on the craft's rear, and the rear wings are the larger set. The second set is mounted just aft of the craft's nose, and closer to the middle of the craft. These wings cut the air ahead of the aft wings, so as to have air flow evenly across both sets of wings at once, increasing stability, and increasing 'lift' dramatically.

Accommodations on the craft are crude at best. The extended cockpit contains an enclosed chemical toilet booth, and a small MRE heating oven, behind the pilots.

The rear bay of the craft is large, with rails along the walls and floor for the insertion or removal of cargo storage equipment. Skyrangers in X-Com use will primarily make use of rows of seating and storage along either wall, allowing up to fourteen personnel and their equipment to be stored effectively.

Remote controlled heavy weapons platforms, due to their sizes, will reduce the amount of seating avaliable.

The Skyrangers in use will also have advanced communications stations in place on the craft, to relay messages, data, and orders up to a satellite in orbit, or retransmit them over long distances.

It is projected that as X-Com expands, Skyrangers will be used more and more frequently in a covert freighter role, moving personnel and equipment from base to base.

[The Veteran]

Length - 32m

Wingspan - 16m

Height - 8m

Skonar? No...

The Skyranger is less than twenty meters long, ten meters wide and three meters high... The craft you're describing would have more than a little trouble attending a terror site unnoticed!

 

Also, I think the things you're writing here are great but DO NOT! open a new thread for each one. Any more posts you have can go in one of the threads that already exists. And if you'd be so kind as to move one of your previous posts into the other thread we can delete the second unnecessary thread...

 

Don't be disheartened but don't be a spammer either... We need space on the forum and we can't have 17 threads in fanfic with just the one post in...

[Skonar]

First off, uhh...

 

Oy. I see your point.

 

If I get around to putting together any others, I'll just make an 'X-Com Archives' post and dump it all in there. Nice and generic. Then whatever deletages must occur may be wired.

 

Otherwise...

 

Okay, this is my opinion only, keep in mind.

 

Point A - Fuel/Distance.

 

A regular aircraft of the same rough dimensions, although not weight, (I was using corporate jets for reference, most of which only have a capacity for 6-12 people, although, granted, not the height) uses like upwards of 9000 Kgs of fuel to travel +- 3000 Km. (Granted, it's a lot lighter.)

 

The skyranger, as in game, seems to need to travel like, halfway around the world. So, this things fuel payload just jumped by like, four times. Thus, limiting the amount of space avaliable for cargo, such as people. The interior is, granted, already pretty spacey at the size I'm dishing out, but, I'll get back to this.

 

So, in my mind, the cockpit is set further forward, connected to the main cabin by a corridor. Fuel tanks lining this corridor, mainly to help rebalance against the back sections. (We're carrying up to, if taking off normally, in addition to 36 tons of fuel, 6 tons of HWPS, cargo, etc.)

 

You could make the thing smaller, but, then your cargo space is going to rapidly be crunched into almost nothing for the required fuel ratio.

 

 

Point B - Systems/Cargo

 

The Skyranger needs to be fast, VTOL capable, and fulfill a relatively large number of roles. (Maybe not in the X-Com uses of it, but almost all similar vehicles, EG, Helicopters, are used for a multitude of roles.)

VTOL equipment takes up a hell of a lot of space in itself, especially on a craft like this. Exhaust pressure chambers and equipment probably line the craft's sides, for relative stability, thus meaning that the fuel needs to be placed within the length of the plane. 'Nuff said.

On the Cargo side...

Any specops unit worth its salt, X-Com especially, is going to need to be able to handle taking wounds. This means having space on the craft to perfrom adequate 'Immediate' first aid care. Due to the extended distances, and flight times, the craft ALSO needs to, theoretically, be able to have enough space for actual surgery and medical care, or at least preliminary forms. This means more equipment, yadda yadda yadda.

Back onto systems, by the very nature of this craft it'll need hefty electronics and radar equipment. (As well as radar interrupting equipment.)

'Nuff said there.

So.

Is it a big mofo? Yes.

Does this preclude making it into a terror site unannounced?...

Yes and no.

Standard 'X-Com' methodology, in the games anyway, seems to indicate that you land your craft right there with the engines running.

... Maybe in some situations, but in something like a terror situation, no. This craft has VTOL capacities - Why not make use of them? Ziplining down from craft like helicopters is heavily practiced, after all, rather than actually landing the thing there.

As for making it into a terror site unannounced...

My argument on that, is that the Alien attacks on larger populations were not expected. A highly covert series of actions like abductions isn't pointing at 'We are going to nuke your cities'. According to the booklet featuring Jake Gaston, included with TFTD, there was a military patrol in the Ukraine which was wiped out when investigating a landed UFO.

... So...

I don't really think X-Com started out even remotely expecting that sort of situation.

Landing in crowded cities?... Unnoticed?

Again a reference to our handy pal, the TFTD booklet. Skyrangers are extremely loud. (In fact, most modern aircraft are extremely loud.)

I think trying to land anything like that is going to alert everything in a very large area anyway.

As for making it in safely...

Well, a city street that's got four lanes, two going each way, will have a wide area in the middle, AND sidewalks. That's going to be up to, and more than, 25-30m.

It'd be a squeeze, but a Skyranger could, in fact, land there with VTOL.

 

So. Those are my reasons for 'Elongating' the Skyranger, as well as, ahh... well. Yes.

 

... *Ahem.*

 

I think I need to either get a life or spend less time trying to marry myself off to my X-Com game discs.

[Spaceman42]

*salutes*

Son, you've just been drafted.

 

Your new orders are to report to the X-COM Field Manual Thread immediately - and that means *yesterday*, soldier. Dismissed.

 

*salutes, then marches off*

[Loonie]

Hahahah. Skonar being called "son". Oh that's freaking HILARIOUS!!!

 

*Ahem* Well I might as well leave now. Good luck to you Skones and may the dimensions of X-Com craft fit in your visualizations more easily.

[The Veteran]

Nicely explained Skonny... But now I must endeavor to pick apart what you just said word by word...

 

Firstly, forget fuel to distance ratios. This is the most sophisticated technology in the world. It would be using a VERY special kind of fuel to operate the engines it has. That would mean that it's more likely to be measured in Kilometers per pint than by kilogram! (Ok not literally but you see my point )

 

Secondly, the Skyranger can only hold 80 items of equipment... Presuming that all 14 seats are taken by soldiers and that a soldiers bare minimum kit would be; primary weapon, ammo, sidearm, ammo, HE grenade, smoke grenade and possibly medkits... That's eighty four items without any medkits at all!!! Fair enough I doubt anyone ever takes all of that kit on missions but we're being realistic here and this IS an elite fighting force...

 

Thirdly, the engines of a skyranger are I believe externally mounted beneath each wing. They are less than three meters long with an intake of less than a square meter... Bear in mind that these engines power the craft at speeds of up to 1450km/h by your calculations (I got 1386 so I won't comlain!) Now if those tiny engines are doing so much work then it's easily believable that the VTOL jets in the underside of the craft are in a lining of merely feet...

 

Fourthly, medical care is never done on the skyranger. That's what field medics are for. They do what they can for the men while they're on the field and then make them ready for the journey home. There is no extra medical equipment on the skyranger but you would be suprised at how much those medkits can do...

 

Fifthly, all of the skyranger's electronic equipment was probably provided by Japan and therefore resides in the craft's nosecone or possibly the pilot's footwell... What it has would be the best of the best but it would all be the most advanced, compact and only include if vitally necessary equipment the world has to offer.

 

Sixthly, have you ever seen a road in the game that's more than ten meters wide? I think not! The skyranger lands using it's VTOL capability whatever the mission is. Sure the engines are loud but when it comes in for the final descent it would be running on it's quieter underside jets. The skyranger is not the Black Hawk Down kind of commando vehicle. The only use rope has on board is for people to hold onto.

 

See it doesn't need to be the size of a large council flat to fit everything inside. Just a small swimming pool.

[Skonar]

LOL. Er.

 

... Yes, you have some points...

 

Okay, firstly, as for the fuel thing...

 

Advanced technology, sure, but there will always be some limits involved.

 

I don't think it's terribly realistic to say that there's going to be an immediately avaliable 'Superefficient' fuel.

 

Granted, though, really I'm already doing that.

 

The thing that went 3000ish Kms to 9000 Kgs fuel, was only weighing in at around 2000-3000 kgs. This skyranger is... Uhh... shall we say, considerably heavier.

 

Keep in mind, now. A skyranger is supposed to be able to carry around a full squad of fourteen men, or, three HWPs and two guys.

 

The two guys will probably weigh in at a combined weight of around 300 kilos, including kit.

 

The HWPs are essentially compact cars, and even without guns and ammo, will probably be sizing in at 800 Kgs, if not quite a bit more. So, we're saying that a Skyranger must, at minimum, be able to carry a cargo of at least approx 3000 Kgs halfway around the world, be the size of an extended minibus, have VTOL, AND be stealthy.

 

... I think not.

 

Then to your second point...

 

That limit is, in my opinion, one to be ignored entirely. As are most of the ingame 'Silly' limits. I mean. One could argue that men are unable to lie down on the ground, or worse still, that firing fully automatic is a series of 'snap shots' in triplicate. So. Weapons locker per fellow on the flight. (Meter wide seat, meter of locker, two sides, works out to being, roughly, what we're looking for.) So, really, 'This' skyranger is a great deal roomier than the standard ingame X-com version. (HELP! HELP! I can't get to the ramp!)

Indeed, you could have 14 stretchers laying on the floor of the Skyranger, end to end. And that might be useful. Some of these flights are 8 hours+. Being well rested is important! (And I can tell you now those seats do not recline.)

 

As for the engines/VTOL issue...

 

That's the ingame representation. I'm inclined to say that is, really, way, way, WAY, too small.

So, er, another bit of ingame stuff quietly ignored for convenience's sake. (I mean, the Skyranger engines are smaller than the ones on actual fighter jets, arn't they? And this IS meant to be a troop transport.)

 

Now. For the field medic issue...

 

IRL, there's a semi-commonly known of concept, 'The Golden Hour'. If you can get a patient that has been stabalized into proper medical care within the first hour, that patient will probably survive.

Without it... Well, unlikely.

I read an account in a history book of a soldier who had taken a bullet to the leg, crushing the bone, who died on the way home in a helicopter as it had sheared many of the internal blood vessels, causing him to bleed to death in a manner that was difficult, if not damn near impossible, to bandage.

Extremely bad burns are worse than this. You end out with flesh fragile and brittle to the point where manipulating it could easily cause one to lose ALL the flesh down to the bone, and, I'm not entirely sure even with some kind of futuristic medical technology it'd be repairable.

So, in my opinion, there's actually a crucial need for some relatively advanced medical care aboard the rangers. Without it, casualties would be even higher than they are, I'd say. (Would you really like to take an eight hour flight home, only having access to very basic paramedic type care? I wouldn't.)

 

On the matter of the electronics... Some of this stuff is, indeed, really really compact. The things that can't easily be made compact include radar gear, and other stuff that requires transmission/recieving of any kind of signal.

You need a large surface to pick it up. I mean, a cellular phone has this dismal range. Yes, it's really compact, though.

A sattelite phone is more compact, yes, but I don't think X-Com can rely on sattelite transmissions. (The Aliens control space, they can definately hit targets in orbit whenever they please.)

So, they'll need radio transmitters and recievers. And the batteries to power them. (And, keep in mind, Skyrangers are produced well ahead of Lasers and Elerium. So, the batteries will probably be largish.)

Okay, it's not like they'll be a massive payload, but, the electronics on the ranger will be a significant portion of the aircraft's load.

 

Finally...

 

... Yes, well, okay. Skyrangers don't land in roads, despite them having the following qualities.

 

A - Able to take heavy weights without sinking in.

B - Solid, level, surface.

C - Almost garunteed to be empty.

 

...

 

Not logical, in my opinion.

 

It'd be nice to be 100% accurate to the game, but, well... You do that and you start running into walls.

 

One could, really, shrink the ranger a bit, I suppose. (Shrink down the cargo cabin.) But, if you do that, you're not really dropping weight, and you are dropping fuel storage in the hull of the craft. (The weight comes in with the armour, the engines, etc.)

 

But...

... I call to the defensive stands...

 

'THE TDF BOOKLET!' (My best friend EVER.)

 

From the footage being viewed in the first segment of the booklet, there is the comment,

 

The camera swiveled right to reveal a Skyranger transport. It looked enormous - I'd seen pictures and, of course, the movies they made about the Alien War but, in the real light of a combat camera, it was truly daunting.

 

The Skyranger as it appears in the game, complete with landing in fields and 80 item limits, is not what I would call enormous by a longshot.

 

Coming in quietly? On VTOL?... Er, no.

 

The jets are basically funnels to shove the engine exhaust through. That's going to be displacing a LOT of air. Displacing that air is anything but quiet. Even in the best circumstances. (Silent helicopters? Not something I'm really aware of. AFAIK the best 'Silent' helicopter doesn't quite deafen the occupants if they're not wearing ear protection, and produces a sound without a readily identifiable direction. Best I've heard of.)

 

HAH! TAKE THAT!

 

Well. Actually you CAN disprove a lot of what I've been saying, since I am, admittedly, going out of some of the game canon. But I do think I'm sticking true to the ideals and style of the game, at any rate.

 

Also, as for being a special ops craft you can zipline out of...

 

I've had this argument a great deal. (I used to be part of TDF, a roleplaying game based loosely on X-Com.)

 

The only real argument I ever get is 'It doesn't seem right.'

 

But. And I will give you this, in the X-Com novel, there's a scene where that Ari dude is dropping off troops from an Avenger in a circle around a terror site to try and box in the aliens.

He says something like, 'It's not our preferred way of working, but drastic measures require drastic action' or whatever.

So my theory of ziplining down DOES have some major opposition there.

However, I still cling to it fondly.

[The Veteran]

lol, enough of the long winded technical posts! Basically I'm arguing towards the Skyranger from the game and you're arguing towards a realistic skyranger...

 

Neither of us can win! But for now let's compromise. Twice the size I'm saying, half the size you are!

[Skonar]

Hmm. That would be...

 

 

Ah!

 

Either 40 meters long or 16 meters long.

 

...

 

THOSE ALIENS AIN'T GOT A CHANCE! We've got some kind of spacial-warping technology here!

[The Veteran]

twenty-eight meters sound ok to you?

[Skonar]

Well, actually...

 

You may just have a point. *Rubs chin.*

 

A drop in four meters in overall length, I'd say, could result in a disproportionate crunch in terms of the cargo space, probably pulling it down to a slightly more cramped, (But not overly so,) ten meters by three with a two point three meter height.

 

...

 

I didn't actually plan on revising this stuff, but, It may actually be an idea. (Maybe.)

 

Have to think about this one. Although, it means that HWPS need to be roughly three meters long to a side. Which, in fact, sounds pretty good to me.

 

Wingspan and whatnot should probably remain the same... Although, weight'll need tweaking.

 

I'll ponder this one. =P

 

It is still pretty damn big, though.

[The Veteran]

It is huge but I'm still not happy on it being so big...

Ah well! I'll cope!

[Fox]

In reference to fan fic, I am agreeing with Skonar on this one... When I try and picture elements from the game, I usually warp them a bit to seem realistic (and really cool). The Skyranger from the game is not nearly realistic. I doubt the game designers gave much thought to how realistic the skyranger would actually be, they just tried to get something good that would fit into the game.

 

When I picture the skyranger now, I picture this craft from genesis:

 

https://www.x-com.co.uk/games/genesis/image...llery/drawtrans

 

They say it looks like a Triton... but I personally think it looks like a Skyranger... but a realistic one. In my fic that's what I'm writing toward, a description of that craft. When you write fic I don't think its logical to stay strictly with the game. One of the things I think about constantly: X-COM Flying Suits. In the game, it's sort of like some silent magnetic levitation deal. But in my fic, I've been thinking of having an E-115 powered Jet Pack type system (similar to jet packs in minority report... although I am mad because I thought of it before the movie! ). It seems a lot more realistic to me.

 

Anyways... I'm just saying in fics, Skonar's interpretation would probably be the most likely, if you are going for realism. Don't feel bad though Veteran, I still respect your opinions on everything! I'm sure a lot of people agree with you on this one!

[The Veteran]

Disagree? With me? Never! I shall destroy your post and noone will ever know! Mwahaha!

Actually... No I won't... I don't really care! So long as I win in the end that is!

[Loonie]

I rest my case.

[Skonar]

Alright, starting a new generic thread for this - Could someone close off this one for me? Thanks.

[The Veteran]

I don't quite know what case you're resting Loonie but so long as you're happy... And it was a joke y the way. Hence the exaggerated use of smilies

Still, I'll close this thread now but I'll leave it on the boards as there's been a good deal of discussion in here. I'll go and sort out the other thread too.Good job Skonny