Question about pinnace.

I'm not a regular poster, but I do read the forum often. As I have been rereading the books (again) there is in Storm where Marines are 'para-jump' from a pinnace. When you look at the models of pinnaces in House and on Maxxq's deviantart page where do the marines jump from? How I read the passage, it sounds like the marines jump out the side of the pinnace but if they do that they have an issue of the wing and engine being in the space that they are jumping into. Else there is a ramp in the rear of the pinnace that they jump out of, but the passage refers to the jump hatch as also being an airlock.

raf25 wrote:I'm not a regular poster, but I do read the forum often. As I have been rereading the books (again) there is in Storm where Marines are 'para-jump' from a pinnace. When you look at the models of pinnaces in House and on Maxxq's deviantart page where do the marines jump from? How I read the passage, it sounds like the marines jump out the side of the pinnace but if they do that they have an issue of the wing and engine being in the space that they are jumping into. Else there is a ramp in the rear of the pinnace that they jump out of, but the passage refers to the jump hatch as also being an airlock.

Yep, that's a good question. The rendering (and the earlier drawings in the Jayne's reference books) don't seem very compatible with the deployment described in Shadow of Saganami.

IIRC from the comments when he first posted that, his is the Mk28 pinnace, while Hexapuma carried the new Mk30. I suppose it's possible that they made changes to the hatch, turbine, and/or wing arrangement to better support port-side assault jumps...

Jonathan_S wrote:

raf25 wrote:I'm not a regular poster, but I do read the forum often. As I have been rereading the books (again) there is in Storm where Marines are 'para-jump' from a pinnace. When you look at the models of pinnaces in House and on Maxxq's deviantart page where do the marines jump from? How I read the passage, it sounds like the marines jump out the side of the pinnace but if they do that they have an issue of the wing and engine being in the space that they are jumping into. Else there is a ramp in the rear of the pinnace that they jump out of, but the passage refers to the jump hatch as also being an airlock.

Yep, that's a good question. The rendering (and the earlier drawings in the Jayne's reference books) don't seem very compatible with the deployment described in Shadow of Saganami.

IIRC from the comments when he first posted that, his is the Mk28 pinnace, while Hexapuma carried the new Mk30. I suppose it's possible that they made changes to the hatch, turbine, and/or wing arrangement to better support port-side assault jumps...

This question has come up before, and while my own particular answer (which doesn't necessarily reflect what the rest of BuNine says about it) isn't satisfying to certain folks here, I'll give it again:

1) The Mk-30 (Condor II) is basically a Mk-28 (Condor) with canards and a bit more streamlining. The overall general configuration is the same, with side hatches for jumping marines, or cargo loading/unloading.

2) There are "grav pressors" (or some kind of "pressors") embedded in the fuselage and wings that are primarily for redirecting airflow into the engines, or around high-risk areas during re-entry. These can also be used to make sure that unwanted objects, such as people, don't get ingested into the intakes, or splatter themselves against leading edges of wings/tail surfaces. There *is* textev, I think, that mentions an airflow shield/diverter for the jumpers, and of course, there's also the possibility of cutting the engines (probably to idle, since there *is* textev about how one of the jumpers could hear the whine of the turbines) before the jumpers leave.

3) There are belly hatches for cargo loading/unloading, that could also be used as drop points for personnel who may find themselves needing to jump out of a perfectly fine aircraft. Granted, there's no textev for anyone doing that, but it *could* be done that way.

4) Because Tom and Thomas designed it that way, based on the missions that a pinnace is supposed to capable of, the various methods of imparting motion required, the requirement for wings, and so on and so on.

Yes, a high-wing, high-engine design would be more believeable, but that wasn't what was required at this time for this particular model of pinnace.

You can accept as much or as little of that as you care to Just remember that this is *my own* justification for the design, not anything official from BuNine (despite the tag under my name) and that I was working with what I was given (the design was worked out before I was asked to join BuNine).

Thanks that clears things up.