What plans are for launch and recovery of single seat craft on capital ships, etc? Will there be a catapult system or similar to the ones used on carriers today, or do we simply "take off" like we do on a landing pad now? Will there be an arrestment system for landing like on real aircraft carriers or will we just land as we do not on the landing pads in free flight?asked by Nimrod_77

So on the Idris and the Bengal we're not really going to have a catapult system to the same level. We have a little bit where I think ... I don't know if we showed it but there's some blast ... I don't know what you would call them ... shields that come up on the flight deck so when the Gladiuses lift off and thrust away it will shield the back of the flight deck from from the blast shield.But essentially the take off mechanism will be a lot like, if you remember the original Squadron 42 trailer that Hannes did and you saw the Hornets lift up like this [hand hovering over desk] to a hover position and then "whoosh" accelerate out. So that's essentially how most single seat fighters will launch.Coming in it will be the same ... they'll come in and arrest ... they'll have to match velocity with the ship they are landing on, the Bengal or the Idris or whatever other ship they are landing on, and then they'll come in, match velocity and land.It's actually trickier than one would think. We are actually doing landings on Idrises at the moment on the development side and there's been a few cases of people smashing in Idris and the side of the walls. So one of actually the tasks we're working on for the landing system is to also have an automated landing system for alignment and bringing you in. Because unless the ship you are landing on is not moving it actually becomes fairly tricky. So if have, say, the Idris doing 100m/s and you're trying to land, you're actually landing faster and you've got to be ... and if it's doing any movement changes and you're doing any it can be ... it can be challenging!So we'll have the ability to hook into the "auto landing system" or land manually yourself but it will be the same kind of landing pad mechanic where you'd come in, and as you came in ... so basically you come in at 200 ... the IFCS would actually adjust your velocity so that as you come inside you're of course entering the ship itself so you're inheriting the ship's velocity, so if I was going 200m/s and entering and Idris at 100m/s, once I've crossed the threshold I really ... relative ... would be travelling 100m/s to the Idris flight deck. Of course we don't really want to be travelling at 100m/s while we are entering way to fast: you'd probably want to be entering around a hundred and ... if the ship was going 100m/s, the Idris, then you probably want to end up entering into it at around, I don't know, 120m/s or something?So there will be skill in doing it but it will be more the landing pad and just making sure you are coming through the opening in the door.