Take off  and landing procedures

The White Falcons are stored into the hanger, directly underneath Flight Deck, and which is running the full length and breadth of Skybase. 

At Colonel White's order of 'Launch Angels', the Angel pilots will rush to their craft, and once into position, each of the Falcons is brought up to the Flight Deck runway by a circular lift, turning at a 180 degrees rotation as it does so.  

The Angel pilots will then follow the usual take-off instructions as given by the robotic on-deck air-traffic controllers which relay the flight signals of their human counterparts from the Flight Control Tower.  Each craft is assigned its own robot.  Although the Angel Interceptor is equipped with powerful boosters, the Magna-strip runway will also be used to accelerate it to launch velocity, in order to perform an faster and almost immediate take off.

The rotating circular lifts at each end of Skybase runways can swiftly transport aircraft to and from the Hanger.  When a Falcon Interceptor comes to land onto Skybase, its shoes engage with the magnetic rails of the Magna-strip runway.  The craft is then brought to a halt on the circular lift at the end of the strip and then brought down into the Hangar, again turning at a 180 degrees rotation.  Once into the Hanger, robotic servicing arms will automatically clamp to the craft fuselage.  

As it moves along a magnetic rail to the other end of the Hanger, a fully automated system of robotic arms will clean the craft engines and canopy, and refuel and rearm it fully.  Once at the other end of the Hanger, the robotic clamps will finally disengage the Falcon.  It is not ready to proceed to take-off once again.

Because Skybase is set at 60,000 feet above Earth's surface, the external conditions are extreme on the Fly Deck, making it extremely risky, is not impossible, for any human being to stand on Deck without proper equipment.  Robotic on-deck air-traffic controllers are therefore used to relay flights signals from their human counter parts operation within Flight Control.

Safe within Flight Control, the air-traffic controller is surrounded by all the instruments needed to exactly knows what is going on on the runway.  The energy cabin in which he is standing will relay all of his movement to the robot on-deck.

A robotic air-traffic controller, up close.  Nicknamed 'Fred', but the Skybase crew and pilots.

White Falcon various views

Top:  Side view, and size comparison with pilot.

Centre left:  View from top.

Centre right: View from underneath.

Bottom left:  Front view.

Bottom right: View from behind.

Thanks to Dominic Lavery for providing some of the pictures from this page.