Sky 1

A bit off the subject being discussed so far, but another thing that
recently occured to me about Sky 1/SkyDiver. Does anyone else think it's a
bit odd procedurally to have the Captain of SkyDiver also serving as the
pilot? I was just thinking about that during the 'take-off angle'
discussion, and it hit me as a bit strange, if you're talking about a
military setup. Surely they ought to have a dedicated pilot on stand-by,
and leave the Captain to look after the tub. SubSmash is a good example,
once Waterman shoots off. What would have happened if Straker and Foster
had not been on board? One of the junior officers has to step up. Not
something I could see happening on a real Naval ship, not in the RN anyway.
Can't really see the skipper of the Ark Royal diving into a harrier with the
boys.

Of course, the others would probably need to be trained in Sky 1's
operations, but I just think it would have been an interesting situation on
board, a little confilct perhaps between the fighter ace and submarine
captain.

Anyway, that was just a thought I had. [I'm an insomniac.]

Jess

"J Ramage" wrote:
> A bit off the subject being discussed so far, but another thing
> that recently occured to me about Sky 1/SkyDiver. Does anyone
> else think it's a bit odd procedurally to have the Captain of
> SkyDiver also serving as the pilot?

I've often thought that. Apart from the tactical problem of
having to leave the 'Diver' section without its captain while
Sky One is doing its thing above the waves, most experienced
potential submarine captains aren't talented fighter pilots,
and vice-versa.

Join the club on insomniacs. Sometimes I have aheck of a time getting to sleep too. Watching Democrats speak on C-Span usually puts me right out.
As far as the Captain being the pilot of Sky as well, I would say that this is just one more example of the crew being too small to actually run the ship. Normally you wouldn't have the jobs combined, but with such a tiny crew (Five actual crewmebers being the largest I have ever seen, in SubSmash) every one has to do double and even tripple duty.
I would hope that all of them are cross trained to do one anothers jobs, just in case.... But you never know with this bunch. I can only think of two esps when Carlin wasn't at the controls of Sky.
Since SHADO has to have some sort of training accadamy (You couldn't just drop anyone into Skys Cockpit, now can you) I would guess that you would cross trsain them there, as well as set up the chain of command as to who would take over during a launch.
Actually, I think Diver could be commanded by a trained monkey at this time, since I have never seen it do anything offensive while Sky is gone.(I know that I am going to get flamed for this) I don't think they carry any offensive weapons outside of Sky, do they?

J Ramage <[hidden email]> wrote:
A bit off the subject being discussed so far, but another thing that
recently occured to me about Sky 1/SkyDiver. Does anyone else think it's a
bit odd procedurally to have the Captain of SkyDiver also serving as the
pilot? I was just thinking about that during the 'take-off angle'
discussion, and it hit me as a bit strange, if you're talking about a
military setup. Surely they ought to have a dedicated pilot on stand-by,
and leave the Captain to look after the tub. SubSmash is a good example,
once Waterman shoots off. What would have happened if Straker and Foster
had not been on board? One of the junior officers has to step up. Not
something I could see happening on a real Naval ship, not in the RN anyway.
Can't really see the skipper of the Ark Royal diving into a harrier with the
boys.

Of course, the others would probably need to be trained in Sky 1's
operations, but I just think it would have been an interesting situation on
board, a little confilct perhaps between the fighter ace and submarine
captain.

Anyway, that was just a thought I had. [I'm an insomniac.]

Jess




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----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Thomas" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 7:19 PM
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Sky 1


> Join the club on insomniacs. Sometimes I have aheck of a time getting to
sleep too. Watching Democrats speak on C-Span usually puts me right out.
> As far as the Captain being the pilot of Sky as well, I would say that
this is just one more example of the crew being too small to actually run
the ship. Normally you wouldn't have the jobs combined, but with such a tiny
crew (Five actual crewmebers being the largest I have ever seen, in
SubSmash) every one has to do double and even tripple duty.
> I would hope that all of them are cross trained to do one anothers jobs,
just in case.... But you never know with this bunch. I can only think of two
esps when Carlin wasn't at the controls of Sky.


When I first saw and fell in love with this program as a kid in the 70's, I
always interpreted SkyDiver as being a large 300 ft+ vessel, with a crew of
at least several dozen.... I assumed they just never showed us the rest
working on the decks below.

Although thru adult eyes the show seems to imply to the contrary, I still
like to imagine that there is an extensive crew off camera. The whole thing
just works better that way for long range deployments....at least to me
IMHO.

Dave H