Overview During the July 9,3038 broadcast of Behind the News, an investigative news program popular in the Lyran Commonwealth, ace aerospace pilot Clayton Andrew was asked what was the worst thing about his job. His reply was, "We (pilots) aren't afraid of dying in the course of a mission; it's dying in a ship that could get you home if it just had a little more gas. We've all had friends lost that way." The aerospace fighter trade off: either more fuel or armor and weapons. One solution to the problem is to provide an external source of fuel so aerospace fighters can either operate further from their base or DropShip or expend more fuel without fear of not returning to their base or DropShip. The aerospace fuel tanker is one solution to the fuel problem. All spacecraft use hydrogen for fuel. The tankage for hydrogen in a gaseous state is the principle limiting factor in most aerospace fighter design. In the past experiments were made with fuel tankers carrying gaseous hydrogen, with poor results. The ships could not carry enough hydrogen to be of any great use without being the size of DropShips themselves. During the height of aerospace development in the old Star League, hydrogen fuel was compressed and frozen to near solid. This process increased the amount of fuel ships could carry. The process was lost during the many conflicts of the past. Not until after the Fourth Succession War did Kalin Aerospace put the rediscovered technology for using frozen hydrogen into an aerospace craft. In a computer controlled tank, hydrogen is compressed and frozen solid. The tank only takes up a fraction of the space needed for holding standard gaseous hydrogen. This allows a fuel tanker to be no bigger than a large fighter and still carry over forty tons of hydrogen fuel. The AT-1 B Wildcat Class Aerospace Tanker is the first production fuel tanker to employ this rediscovered technology. The Wildcat is the first aerospace craft to be produced by Kalin Aerospace as the prime contractor in over two hundred years. A spokesperson at Kalin Aerospace said that much of the rediscovered technology had its original research done by the New Avalon Institute of Science and Technology. The AT-1 B is just one of many new aviation products that the company plans to introduce. (For more information on Kalin Aerospace, past and present, see the June 3039 issue of Aerospace Today.) Capabilities The AT-1 B Wildcat's main mission is to provide fuel for aerospace fighters in space. The Wildcat has medium armor coverage and two medium lasers for defense. It should always be deployed with other combat units in combat situations; it isn't designed to be a front line unit. The Wildcat has a crew of two, a Pilot and a Mission Specialist/Co-Pilot. The Wildcat can carry forty-five tons of frozen hydrogen fuel. The computerized tanks reheat the fuel to a gaseous state for transfer and use by the tanker. Five tons is normally retained for the tanker's engine. It can refuel two aerospace fighters at a time from its service refueling arms. The two service arms can extend ten meters. Aerospace fighters can be refueled either in space or on the surface of a world, but not while flying in an atmosphere (the service arms are not aerodynamic). (Complete rules for refueling can be found in the AeroTech and BattleTech Manual under 'Fighter Refueling'.) In normal in-space refueling, the tanker will match speed and course with the receiving aerospace fighter. The Mission Specialist will deploy the service refueling arm and attach it to the aerospace fighter's fuel port. Battle History The AT-1 B Wildcat is being produced at an undisclosed location at a rate of forty-plus a year. Over sixty have been delivered to various governments. As it is a new aerospace vehicle, the Wildcat has seen little true combat, but Pilot and Ground Crew training are on schedule. House Steiner is the first government to receive the Wildcat. Reports from their pilots indicate that the Wildcat performs up to and beyond its design standards. The Wildcat has two basic missions: Mission A - LongRange Fighter Sweep, and Mission B - High Speed Transport. Mission A: This mission has proven the Wildcat to be a valuable addition to Aerospace Fighter Lances. A DropShip will launch the fighters and tanker at a greater than normal distance from its target. This allows the DropShip either to wait out of harm's way or to go onto other duties. The fighters can use more fuel and so have greater speed to their target. At a point before they reach their target, the tanker will refuel all of the fighters. The tanker will then withdraw a safe distance from the combat zone, either to wait until the fighters withdraw so as to refuel them for the return to the DropShip, or to land at the objective once they have secured it. Mission B: The Wildcat has the largest fuel supply of any aerospace vehicle. It can use its large fuel supply to make a one-way high speed trip between two points eight times faster than any other aerospace fighter. Itcan make a round tripfour times as fast. It will still have four to five tons of fuel left when it reaches its destination. Typical transport arrangements are: 1) 2 crew and 100 kg of cargo 2) 1 crew, 1 passenger and 100 kg of cargo 3) 1 crew and 400 kg of cargo Variants Four AT-lAs were produced as working prototypes. They only have 1/2 the fuel capacity of the production AT-1 B. At the time of this writing, Kalin Aerospace is using them to experiment with other possible designs and systems. It's rumored that House Steiner has removed all weapons form several of its AT-1 Bs to increase the cargo carrying capacity up to two tons. They changed the name to the AT1 C Cargo Cat. Kalin Aerospace takes no responsibility for and has no input with the development of this variant. It must be noted that the weapon mounts and wiring are designed for easy removal and installation of different weapon systems. Many unofficial variants should be expected. Note 1: The Service Refueling Arms are housed one in each wing. When all the armor is gone from a wing, the Arm stored there is destroyed. Note 2: Neither the new hydrogen fuel technology nor the physical size of an aerospace fighter affect the playing of the BattleTech simulator game. AT-1 B Wildcat Class Aerospace Tanker Mass: 100 tons Frame: AT-1 series Engine: Collins 300 Aero Armament: 2 Martell Type 4 Medium Lasers Main Manufacture: Kalin Aerospace Communications System: RCA CommLink 55 Targeting / Tracking System: RCA TrackLink 65 Simulator Stats: AT-1 B Wildcat Tanker Tonnage: 100 tons Thrust: 5 Overthrust: 7 Structural Integrity: 10 tons Engine 300 38 tons Fuel: 675 points 45 tons Cockpit: 3 Heat Sinks: 10 Service Refueling Arms: 2 1+1 tons Weapons: 2 tons Type: Location Medium Laser Nose 1 ton Medium Laser Rear 1 ton Armor: 160+10 10 tons Armor Factor: Cockpit: 10 + 5 Nose: 40 Wings: 20 / 20 Fuselage: 45 Engine: 30 Jumbo Wildcat Schematic (slow: 198K) Back to BattleTechnology 10 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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