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So, I’m enjoying Aeronautica Imperialis, and have been painting up those chunky Thunderbolts and Marauders. But, while I’ve seen skids on the bottom of Dakka jets, and wheels on their Eavy Bommer, I don’t see how Thunderbolts and Marauders take off and land.

My initial assumption is that there are landing gear hiding in the fuselage somewhere, and they land like any modern jet aircraft. Then, early on in Dan Abnet’s Double Eagle, we see a Marauder flip modes and land VTOL style. Except, if a Marauder can hover... well, if a bomber could just park that would be a pretty big deal...

So, what do you think? Are they like Star Wars ships, always flying around at full speed, then just landing like a helicopter when they want to?

So it took 38000 years, but they finally got the F35 into service

At least based on double eagle they can either flip their engines for downward thrust in order to take of VTOL style or they can be launched into the air with a catapult like on modern carriers. I'd assume the catapults are more effective, since they allow the engines to immediately hit full thrust whereas the vtol is slower, but requires very little space.

They get catapulted into the air to take off and landing? Landing means you aren't out fighting the enemy and not fighting the enemy is for heretics, traitors and cowards.

Yeah in DE they sit on launch ramps and use RATO. (Rocket assisted take off) although I guess it's more like rocket launch to regular flight. I can't really remember how they land but I guess they come into the hover and set down on some sort of landing gear. That's thunderbolts though. Theres no mention of how marauders take off or land.

I know people decry common-sense or real-world discussions, but even modern VTOL aircraft often cannot take off vertically when full of full and armed.

So as DE suggest it's likely they ramp or take off as a normal fighter jet, while possessing the ability to land vertically if needed. Almost all aircraft operate in a very tiny window of acceptable weight. Many aircraft cannot land when full of fuel/munitions because the landing gear simply isn't made to handle the additional stress of X-thousands of pounds of junk. VTOL I'd imagine operate in an even smaller window.

So in 40K terms, it's ramsp/rockets to take off with the heavy girl (full of munitions and fuel) and then landing would be normal landing unless VTOL would be necessary (it's time consuming/potentially more dangerous, etc.).

I think you need to remember that marauder are also capable of void warfare, assuming they can enter and exit atmosphere on their own steam, it suggest their engines are very powerful, so whilst they may use a catapult for efficiency reasons for launch, they probably don't need to.

They also have skid style landing gear traditionally, like most imperial aircraft seem to.

 Skinflint Games wrote:
So it took 38000 years, but they finally got the F35 into service

You get an exalt for that you magnificent bastard

 Elbows wrote:
I know people decry common-sense or real-world discussions, but even modern VTOL aircraft often cannot take off vertically when full of full and armed.

So as DE suggest it's likely they ramp or take off as a normal fighter jet, while possessing the ability to land vertically if needed. Almost all aircraft operate in a very tiny window of acceptable weight. Many aircraft cannot land when full of fuel/munitions because the landing gear simply isn't made to handle the additional stress of X-thousands of pounds of junk. VTOL I'd imagine operate in an even smaller window.

So in 40K terms, it's ramsp/rockets to take off with the heavy girl (full of munitions and fuel) and then landing would be normal landing unless VTOL would be necessary (it's time consuming/potentially more dangerous, etc.).

You're forgetting they are capable of space flight. Earth escape velocity is 11.2 km/s, meaning the craft must be able to reach this velocity at minimum, under its own power. Seeing this is vastly higher speed than practical in the atmosphere, it's perfectly possible they can trade some of that speed to fly with combat load in normal conditions. The problem would be flying into orbit with combat load, but it's possible they just dump the ammunition (or drop it on target) before doing so. Starting with combat load from either the space ship or ground is probably not a problem at all.

I strongly believe they won't dump any ammo like this seeing as just wasting some stuff can get you death sentence in the IG. I can't see them dumping ammo just to land

 godardc wrote:
I strongly believe they won't dump any ammo like this seeing as just wasting some stuff can get you death sentence in the IG. I can't see them dumping ammo just to land

Yes, in IG. Navy pilots are insanely expensive in training specialists, second only to Space Marines. Ditto for Marauder bomber, one must be as expensive as a whole company of IG tanks, with superheavy ones included. Seeing most Imperial bombs have simple (for Imperium) guidance systems, I can't see them being very expensive and any sane doctrine will tell you to ditch them if there is any danger for pilot, never mind whole craft with crew and possibly relic systems aboard. In fact, I could see pilot being executed for trying to save ammo by particularly hardass comissars or commanders

Sterling191 wrote:

 Skinflint Games wrote:
So it took 38000 years, but they finally got the F35 into service

You get an exalt for that you magnificent bastard

Have one yourself brother, vectored thrust is an art as well as a science

 Irbis wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
I know people decry common-sense or real-world discussions, but even modern VTOL aircraft often cannot take off vertically when full of full and armed.

So as DE suggest it's likely they ramp or take off as a normal fighter jet, while possessing the ability to land vertically if needed. Almost all aircraft operate in a very tiny window of acceptable weight. Many aircraft cannot land when full of fuel/munitions because the landing gear simply isn't made to handle the additional stress of X-thousands of pounds of junk. VTOL I'd imagine operate in an even smaller window.

So in 40K terms, it's ramsp/rockets to take off with the heavy girl (full of munitions and fuel) and then landing would be normal landing unless VTOL would be necessary (it's time consuming/potentially more dangerous, etc.).

You're forgetting they are capable of space flight. Earth escape velocity is 11.2 km/s, meaning the craft must be able to reach this velocity at minimum, under its own power. Seeing this is vastly higher speed than practical in the atmosphere, it's perfectly possible they can trade some of that speed to fly with combat load in normal conditions. The problem would be flying into orbit with combat load, but it's possible they just dump the ammunition (or drop it on target) before doing so. Starting with combat load from either the space ship or ground is probably not a problem at all.

Sure, but all the power in the world doesn't matter if your run way isn't long enough. Look at aircraft carriers. We have aircraft capable of Mach 2.0+....but it doesn't matter if you only have a tiny deck to launch from. The same could be said of "found" runways or quickly smacked together airfields on the front lines. It's very possible they don't have the room to launch effectively, etc. Loads of ways to justify it - but we're talking GW fiction here, so it will likely change every novel depending on how it suits the author.

- Some of the Imperial aircraft are VTOL capable. The Avenger fighter has tiny, downwards-pointing thrusters on its main engines, as well as landing skids. Valkyrie as well. We all know 40k and real-world physics / hard science are not friends, though, and models are designed to look good, not to make sense.
- Anti-grav tech exists, it could have some plates installed to make the aircraft lighter.
- In DoW1 game, planes, even the Marauder were hovering, but that could be because of the game engine limitations. In fluff, most aircraft seem not to be hovering, except troop transports like Valkyrie, Arvus or other transports.

My subjective conclusion is, that Imperial aircraft should be able to hover in place to some extent (they must be, VTOL), but pilots try to hover as least as possible, as the plane is extremely vulnerable, could be hard to control, and without forward movement and without the lift generated by the airflow, fuel consumption could be enormous. There can be other reasons too, but I'm not that big airplane enthusiast to know/be aware of at this moment.

tl;dr - In my opinion, Imperial aircraft are able to hover in place to some extent, but most types are not designed to be hovering for longer than is necessary for safe take-off or landing.