GuessWho

In the beginning of ROTS, Anakin crashlands Grievious' ship on a landing strip.

Since everyone in the subforum LOVES fighting details that don't matter to anything:


Why is there a landing strip/runway? What ship needs a runway?

Jackskeleton

Huge ships like that?

GuessWho

All the ships had a vertical takeoff. The landing gears don't even have wheels, much less need a rolling takeoff.

Jackskeleton

A landing strip can also be used to house/park those ships. So regardless of ships taking off in a horizontal fashion, you will still ned a long strip of land to park/land all those ship.

So in a sense, Landing strip does make some sense.

Also, The planet is a giant traffic jammed city. I'm pretty sure that you would need to assign special routes so that a ship just doesn't do a vertical climb and takes out a lane of traffic. So a landing strip can be used to channel and controls those such routes.

GuessWho

That would be a 'hangar'

Jackskeleton

You got a hanger big enough for those star destroyers to be kept indoors? You saw when Obi was getting into one that there was a huge bridge to the enterence and it was kept outside.

Clearly, they need exterior space for the bigger ships. When they are the size of a city you figure that they would be Landed on a [/b]strip[/b]. Regardless if they are taking off in a horizontal or vertical fashion, they take up a lot of space. Especially during a war when they will be on the move at a moments notice. They would need be kept outside and ready for a vertical and then horizontal left off through an assigned route.

Class316

It's a landing strip, you need a strip of land to house loads of space ships. Now if they said "runway" then that would be a plot hole.

GuessWho

I was definitely thinking runway

Class316

In this instance landing strip sounds very valid. It could be landing strip or landing pod.

mikehunt

the problem here isn't that there was a landing strip, the problem is that the landing strip just happened to be located in exactly the right spot for an uncontrolable piece of falling starship to hit after falling out of orbit

GuessWho

ah, but how could a starship 'fall' from space instead of just floating away?

Michael Corvin

Damn. I thought this was going to be a thread about Padme.

mikehunt

gravity
same reason satellites and Mir eventually fall to Earth

Class316

Anakin did steer it. Maybe he even used the force to direct it.

masetodd

The answer is obviously because Lucas thought this scene would be cool in the movie, and it could all be done in CGI!

Another ship-related question is why do the walls become the ceiling, etc. as the ship is rotating in space? No matter which direction the ship is turned, the artificial gravity should always be pulling one towards the floor! Again, Lucas thought this would look cool on the screen (and it does), but it absolutely makes no sense.

story

I don't like the landing strip, really. I prefer a trim triangle or bare.

Superboy

I was thinking the same thing about artificial gravity. I mean alot of those ships were at an angle too, not directly parallel to the ground beneath them. Also, when an object's orbit decays, it does not fall straight down and plummet like a rock. Then again, why are we even bothering to question the validity of science in sci-fi movies? realistically speaking, we shouldn't even be albe to hear any space battles EVER.

pdinosaur

case solved!

GuessWho

A landing strip is the same as a runway... just using difefrent words when referring to a takeoff or landing. An aircraft carrier is a mobile runway/landing strip.

M-W.com refers you to "airstrip" when you look up "landing strip" -- and the definition is "a runway"

The concent is the same: to take off or land, you need a rolling start or rolling end.




BUT......... SW ships don't roll.

The only purpose is for storage/parking. They just need a "hangar" (indoors) or "parking lot" (outdoors)

RoyalTea

perhaps it was close enough to Coruscant that the plantet's gravitational pull was stronger than the artifical gravity in the ship?

pdinosaur

you've over thought this to the extreme.

dictionary.com defines a runway as "A strip of level, usually paved ground on which aircraft take off and land."

m-w.com says virtually the same thing.

the ship took off from land, thus, it took off from a runway, or an airstrip, or a landing strip. as it was landing, it was entirely appropriate for obiwan to say 'landing strip's straight ahead'

ps, the aircraft carrier was there to demonstrate parking on a landing strip. it would have been better i suppose to show a harrier jet landing on an aircraft carrier. granted it doesn't appear to be hovering, but you get the idea. so enjoy this:

thephantom

Wasn't the airstrip flying? I always thought there was some Air Traffic Controller looking at radar going "Oh SHIT!", and they launched the emergency flying landing pad.

To me it makes perfect sense. When you have flying machines that are a half mile wide and weigh in at over a million tons, you don't want them smashing into your nice row of mile tall buildings at 800+ miles an hour do you? Doesn't even have to be a war, we know engines cut out and shit.

Michael Corvin

Kinda puts it in perspective. Two posts about the female anatomy, one being Natalie Portman, yet everyone only wants to talk about aircraft carriers.

Carry on.

GuessWho

That's my whole point of this thread. To see how far into detail I can push...

From the original post:

and I included a smilie.... this thread was never serious to begin with. Overthink? No, just making banter.

JohnDoeUSA

This is a great thread because it lets me know that despite what my wife says, I am not the biggest SW geek! Runway this..... Landing strip that......... Rock on fellow SW geeks