hi hi

I'm curious as to what other people think T Birds are like. I have heard a lot of different, sometimes conflicting explanations for what they are and how they work. Some people say they work like the ekranoplan and utilize surface effect, but are otherwise essentially tanks. Other people say they are more like VTOL jets planes with heavier armor and weapons. Some people say they are like just like extra powered hovercraft.

I have no idea what they are actually like now. None of the 4th edition books seem to be of any help, they just sort of assume that you already know what they are because they've been around so long. Any clues?

Definitely not ekranoplanes, although SR *should* have those.

For me, I always thought they were VTOL 'tanks' with lifting bodies; not real airplanes, but stubby and aerodynamic vec-thrust craft.

p. 100 Arsenal
"No smuggler vehicle is more specialized, however, than
the good ’ol LAV (low-altitude vehicle).
Nicknamed t-birds (aka thunderbirds, for the distinctive
noise they make as they blur past), LAVs rely on ground eff ect lift
and very short wings to keep them in the air, and so are limited
by low altitudes and high stall speeds. Dangerous to fl y, t-birds
require skilled pilots (called t-birders). Th ough they guzzle fuel
like pigs, t-birds are ideal for smuggling as they’re fast, hug the
ground to fl y under radar, can carry good hauls, and can be geared
up with armor and weapons."

You can have variants that would have ground skirts ala hovercraft,

Mostly they are ground effect vehicles and it looks like they typically have the the lift for low altitude flight.

-- What DireRadiant said. Think of a Harrier with more armor and stubbier wings.

-- They don't make a lot of sense in their supposed niche, but that's because they were directly cribbed from the novel Hardwired (which is also where their original name came from, panzers). Which is funny, because in the Cyberpunk sourcebook that Walter John Williams himself wrote, they look more like air cushion vehicles

Well, if they have high stall speeds, they're not really VTOL after all, right? Hmm.

Never seen a T-bird?! How do they look? AWSOME. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T-bird.jpg

I so want that to fly.

Well, if they have vectored thrusters and small wings, they might need high stall speed when the thrusters are horizontal, but when put to vertical position they can stay immobile in the air.

Wait, they used to be vector thrust vehicles! When was that changed? Something like this, but limited in altitude due to it's heavy armor.

not heard that those will. but the 1969 model of the charger could fly!

-- Hmm yeah that is odd. Because this implies that they need to land and take-off like a conventional aircraft. This is directly counter both to their supposed utility and the art (they are already borderline aerodynamically impossible anyways, with their turrets).

I'm fine with VTOL up, then swivel the nozzles to be a rocket-plane. They don't really seem to use ground effect, though. That's *really* low. Or, rather, if they use ground effect, they certainly don't *rely* on it, like an ekranoplane.

I'd say T-birds are supersonic vector thrust powered veicals that can make use of ground effect for long trips to cut fuel use.

Supersonic and tiny wings? Can't imagine them carrying enough fuel for any trip to be a long one.

hard to be supersonic with big wings.

well they can hit 333.3M/S as a cruseing speed. Thats just shy of mach 1 at 340.29 m / s so with pilot tests It looks like one can hit at least mach 1.

Daylen, there's certainly a sweet spot in play. My point is that the F-22 is one thing, a T-bird is another. A rocket plane can definitely *go* that fast… it just can't make any 'long' trips.

In previous editions, LAVs and T-birds were synonymous.

There are at least 2 LAVs pictured on p113 of Arsenal.


The GMC Banshee seems like it's the odd duck being specifically called a thunderbird.

Wait, are they *not* synonymous now? :/

To me, the Skraacha looks like a hovertank, not a rocket-plane. Hrm. The MiG-67 is a little faster, and the Banshee's faster still (a little). I guess it's a broad category?

I would imagine they resemble Deep Flight, only with more bulk and four thrust vectors instead of the two propellers.

Hence my superstition of for long journeys it uses ground effect. As to reach mach 1+ it needs a pilot test so its not with in normal operation. Though with some mods to the base craft it becomes much more possible. I see the T-Bird as a class of heavy fast craft. With roles from fast transport. To HTR and purely fire-support.

Likely with radically different moderations. As a pure gunship it would be as fast a some jets but as versatile as a helicopter with VTOL and hovering. Though air superiority fighters and such would still have jobs.

The only fighter in SR4 atm the Federated-Boeing Eagle-C though falls as a T-Bird in this out look in a way. While more a harrier in style its body and such put in the same class as the GMC Banshee. Though one must ask why one has sensor 5 and the other 3. In fact costing almost a third of the price its odd that the only sensor 5 is the GMC Banshee.

I guess, but the problem is that they don't appear to. That looks like a standard cruise missile, but the images we have of T-birds are *much* bulkier. They barely have any fins at all, let alone wings.

Some images HERE are also illustrative.

Honestly, the Eagle-C's stats must be wrong, in comparison to the Banshee. It doesn't really make sense for a t-bird to be as fast as a fighter, even a VSTOL fighter-bomber.

There's some original artwork on this page.

Well ture. T-Birds are really named for there sound... and yes the images we have are mad. Did SR find a way to negate gravity a bit or such. Though maybe they use lighter that air tech to make them as "light" as possible so they need less lift....

-- The Banshee is still vectored thrust according to SR4A (p. 349). It's also controlled using the VTOL/VSTOL skill.

--I'm not sure what to make the Arsenal text. Perhaps it was a bit too off-the-cuff? But it's not like stall speeds are really given any explanatory text anyways Shadowrun does appear to be a bit inconsistent with panzers though, in the original Rigger Black Book they are "Effective VSTOL (vector thrust)"

-- Rigger 3 I think had the best description of how these worked, and they should probably just have stolen that text verbatim: (See Rigger 3, p. 69).

Anyway, the point is that being the fastest thing is *not* what T-birds are for. They're much, much slower than a jet fighter, even by 2010 standards. Instead, they have heavy armor/armament/payload, and they fly very low. Vectored-thrust makes sense.

Let's ignore the stall speed thing. Maybe it simply refers to their gliding ability (nonexistent), as someone implied above.

It's called aerofoil hull design. The X-43 takes the design the concept to the extreme to achieve hypersonic flight, but at less extreme levels it makes a winless aircraft possible as long as it can maintain a fairly high speed.


Am I the only one who felt R3's vehicle rules were the best so far (aside from body)?

I did love Rigger 3, so much. Anyway, for those without the benefit, here's Rigger 3, p.108:

Sounds perfect to me: *short* range, gas guzzler, no wings, 100% jet thrust. They're hovertanks. Well. Flying tanks, because armored hovercraft also exist.

Add some gun turrets and you've got a GMC Banshee.

http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/news/pho...43b-sunset2.jpg

Take off and accelerate with vector trust and switch over to ramjets in-flight.

I'm rereading the original Secrets of Power novel at the moment, and there's a T-Bird in there. It's very specifically referred to as a Tank and a Panzer... I suspect that they've kinda morphed and been retconned a bit over the years...

The original Rigger Black Book had a pic of one too, IIRC>..

Bull

Hypersonic is not within the scope of a t-bird. Supersonic is barely okay, as an extreme maneuver, for the exceptionally aerodynamic models.

Very much so as I stated or at least tryed. Though the Federated-Boeing Eagle-C can cruse at mach 1.175. Though its T-bird staus is debate able but looking at its over stats it fits very well as a mill spec combat t-bird.

they are the SR version of the A10.

Agreed. It's much too slow for a F-15, or even a Harrier. It's not too slow for an A-10, and it doesn't look like/isn't described as a T-bird or LAV. It's just a really slow fighter-bomber.

Didn't the math myselfe, did you remember transforming the speed from meters / combat turn into km/h?

No, he converted to m/s. Mach 1 is 340 m/s.

hi hi

Hmm...I guess my question will remain unanswered, because it seems there is no right answer. I'll have to consult with my GM.

I think I like the short range flying tank iteration better though.

I'd take that Rigger 3 quote as the correct canonical description.

There was an interesting discussion along these line about a year ago... LINK.

I particularly remembered Kerenshara's detailed explanations. She's very... thorough.

It's not right, though. :/

hi hi

So basically T Birds can only really be used over water because they wont be able to fly over things like trees due to the limitations of Ground Effect. I guess that works too.

No, that's the whole point. Ekranoplanes fit that description, but t-birds certainly do not. They're explicitly described as 'used on land where tanks wouldn't work'.

I'm not convinced ground effect/WIG has any significant role in t-birds. AFAIK, you need *wings*, the bigger the better. Hence, the ekranoplane. T-birds, on the other hand, are drawn and described as flying bricks.

If one of those ekranoplanes used something like a GEnx with thrust vectoring nozzles and a NOE pilot assist system, it would have no difficulty flying anywhere in the world. However, since they use engines that barely put out 5% of the thrust, and manual flight controls with only a very basic autopilot they are limitted to oceanic flight.

But, I'm saying, the t-birds in all the books don't fit that.

• Panzers (yes, I use the old SR1 term because it sounds cooler) probably have a lifting body hull which will provide a bit more lift than their stubby little wings alone will.
• They may also benefit a bit from the wing-in-ground effect in some situations, just like any other aircraft (which will substantially increase their fuel efficiency, as previously noted).
•They probably are not normally VTOL, and as described in previous sourcebooks are VSTOL so they don't blow all their fuel just getting off the ground.
• Being below a panzer is very hazardous to your health.
* They will require some sort of prepared ground to land on and take-off from.

Technological advancements allow for extraneous components to be removed. Remove the wings from an ekranoplanes, and install thrust vectoring nozzles controlled by a NOE system on the back of a powerful set of engines and they'd still be able to fly.

But then it's not an ekranoplane.

Yeah, it becomes a t-bird.

Right! … What were we talking about?

Well...


So I don't see it as a problem over short periods of time.