>Then along come designs optimized, in the pressure cooker R&D
>environment of Earth's Cold War, for atmospheric combat. With
>appropriate tech upgrades, they can hold their own in vacuum--after
>all, in space nobody cares if you're a cube--but down in the soup,
>nothing built primarily for space can touch them.

Exactly. In fact, I like to think that in UF, the Thunderbolt Starfury (with its supplementary airfoils and sitting-down cockpit) was developed at least partly because someone at the Dome realized that Earthforce's fighter wings might have to fight the likes of the WDF's SF-8Z Super Crusader in the air over Geneva someday.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.