Hey guys

Rather than derail the "favorite ship" thread I want to ask this question here. I really like the looks and stats of the ILH-KK Citadel-Class Civilian Cruiser but one thing bugs me. How does it land? It has huge side-mounted vertical stabilizers (i.e. the vertical "wings") and I don't see how the ship could land on even ground.

Any ideas? Do the "wings" turn 90 degrees (and form a V of sorts along the hull) when the ship lands? Do the wings fold up? Is the ship held up by a bunch of force-using Ewoks that live in the exhaust system?

Turning makes the most sense. Folding is a bit of a stretch (those are big wings), but the lower wings could fold under and the ship rests on them like landing gear, with another landing gear folding out from underneath the front. Maybe it sits on its engines and has a chute that all the crew tumbles out of when it lands. The art from the book and elsewhere show it docking with a platform but not landing, so maybe it actually can't land in regular ports. Seems unintuitive, but it may have been intended for Core Worlds or corporations that can afford those kinds of luxuries.

The wings rotating is about the only thing that makes sense. The ship definitely doesn't look very small-spaceport friendly.

When my PCs had one, we decided the two side-wings rotate 90*, swinging the bottom to the fore and the top to the aft of the ship. The bottom wing folds underneath to one side or the other, much like the Imperial Shuttle from SWTOR.

Rotating wings seems to work.

Alternately, you land that baby like you are SpaceX, pointing straight up.

I was thinking the same thing, that the wings would rotate to line up parallel to the body of the ship, the bottom coming up toward the front, while the top edge swung back.

However, after seeing this view of it, I see there's a ventral fin as well! This thing is only Sil 4, so roughly the same as the Falcon. I have no idea how this thing would land without a special platform. But I like the crew chute idea!

EDIT: Holy cow! Triple ninja'ed! I like DarthGM's idea of the ventral fin folding over. It's needlessly complex, just they way I like my Star Wars ships!

Wow, never noticed the dorsal fin. That thing looks like it was designed for docking to space-stations, not landing... Pretty terrible design from that point of view.

If I remember my Clone Wars correctly, it seemed like some ships, like the Venator-class Star Destroyer just sort of... hovered over the ground, like they have repulsor lifts instead of landing gear. Others actually touched the ground.

It's quite possible that it was never intended to land. I've seen pictures of it docked alongside stations and platforms, but never any of it resting on a surface.

"Get it in the cradle! Get it in the cradle!" ~ Roland and Wat

It would be possible that it could land beside one of the landing platforms like we saw on the forest moon of Endor. They have an elevated platform. It would just need a small lift truck or assembly to rest on once the repulsorlifts stabilized. It wouldn't take much of a gantry (except underneath) to adapt to different kinds of shuttles for this.

Very very long landing gears.

There’s another image at http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060930090343/starwars/images/0/02/Citadel_Cruiser.JPG that also shows the ventral and dorsal fins, along with an indicator of a hinge in the ventral fin to allow part of it to fold to the side.

Witness:

I think i read somewhere, can't remember if here, on if i heard it on order66, that the ship is supposed to fold the tip of the ventral fin and land standing on the ventral fin and the two wins, similar to the TIE fighter.

Personally i prefer the rotanting wings fin cause it looks more elegant.

Landing on the wing tips would require the longest landing ramp ever

Maybe it uses an elevator like the Gozanti

Looking at these drawings, I would be inclined to have the outboard wings rotate ninety degrees to be parallel with the ground, and at the same time have the ventral fin pivot backwards to meet the dorsal fin via a hidden hinge pin in something like a scissor action. The rear landing legs could then exposed as part of that fin pivoting backwards.

That would also allow the turret at the base of the ventral fin to become rear-facing, when the ventral fin is fully rotated.

I think that would actually look cooler than the wings of a Lambda shuttle when they fold in.

Seems like an artist drew a cool concept picture without any thoughts of practically. What if the front cockpit rotates 90 degrees so the thing lands on its side, only used in rare or emergency situations. The rest of the time it is a docking only ship.

I did some research into this and the answer I found, based on what the designer's intent was, is that the ventral third of the central wing folds, and it lands on a "tripod of wings." I think for stability you'd have some manner of forward landing gear though. You'd also probably have to have either a telescoping ramp or a vertical lift, as the ship isn't long enough to fit a conventional ramp and have it reach the ground at a decent angle.

The problem with the rotating wings is the ventral fin. You'd have to say it somehow telescopes up through the belly of the beast and into the dorsal fin, with the bottom third of the ventral fin telescoping up into the rest of it. This is certainly plausible, and no more awkward than the wing landing.

Why I never liked the ship, landing is totally impractical looks cool flying but is alk

The problem with the rotating wings is the ventral fin. You'd have to say it somehow telescopes up through the belly of the beast and into the dorsal fin, with the bottom third of the ventral fin telescoping up into the rest of it. This is certainly plausible, and no more awkward than the wing landing.

Or as I mentiond it folds to the side; left or right. There's precedence in Legends for this, namely the Sith Shuttle I linked to above. That has an even more gi-normous wing that folds asymmetrically to one side of the craft for landing.

The problem with the rotating wings is the ventral fin. You'd have to say it somehow telescopes up through the belly of the beast and into the dorsal fin, with the bottom third of the ventral fin telescoping up into the rest of it. This is certainly plausible, and no more awkward than the wing landing.

Or as I mentiond it folds to the side; left or right. There's precedence in Legends for this, namely the Sith Shuttle I linked to above. That has an even more gi-normous wing that folds asymmetrically to one side of the craft for landing.

It would need to fold up in sections for that to happen, it is much longer than half the width of the shuttle.

To bad the fin is there, with the idea for rotating wings this ship would have been pretty cool. With an awkwardly folding ventral fin it becomes a bit weird and inelegant.

I am half-tempted to just edit out the fin completely and use the shuttle for my PCs without one. Perhaps the fin is only on the early prototypes and was done away with in later releases...

Now if I could only find decent deck plans my life would be so much easier.

The problem with the rotating wings is the ventral fin. You'd have to say it somehow telescopes up through the belly of the beast and into the dorsal fin, with the bottom third of the ventral fin telescoping up into the rest of it. This is certainly plausible, and no more awkward than the wing landing.

Or as I mentiond it folds to the side; left or right. There's precedence in Legends for this, namely the Sith Shuttle I linked to above. That has an even more gi-normous wing that folds asymmetrically to one side of the craft for landing.

It would need to fold up in sections for that to happen, it is much longer than half the width of the shuttle.

Not if the side wings rotated to become parallel with the ship.

So with the ventral fin folded off to the side, under the rotated wing, standing out past the wing? This is going from inelegant to pretty **** ugly

Like so?

Please excuse rough sketch with no regards to scale or aesthetics. The pink bits are the rotated side-wings. The yellow is the ventral fin. The top fin has been left out by the lazy artist!

Someone already mentioned it, it lands on its wings, the ventral wing has a hinge near the bottom so it folds aside and it lands on two or three wings. Suppose some uber long landing gear comes out the nose

Just doesn't make any sense, design wise. Seriously, if the landing ramp needs to be the length of a football field (or close to that), the design needs improvements. I'm not married to the canon so I think I'll change that silly detail for a more elegant solution