"Galactica 80" Dual Seater Mark I Viper Reference

This is of course in reference to the follow up series that was created for the original Battlestar Galactica. The crew and the rag tag fleet has finally reached Earth, but they are unable to land in fear the Cylons would follow suit and attack. So they sent scouts down and hence the adventures of the Colonial Warriors in those funky cyles. The series didn't fare very well and about the only recurring actor that came back for his role was Lorne Greene (Commander Adama).

Many fans would choose to forget this series ever existed and to die hard BSG fans, its merely an extension to the saga. Personally I didn't like it either, but I did dig that dual seater Vipers introduced in that series.

Of course the introduction of a cloaking device for the Vipers didn't really work well with me. Those fighter crafts should be seen in action, not hidden, something I suspect was developed by the studio to reduce special effect costs so the story can be focused more on Earth. Its no wonder the show fell flat.

There are some difference with the Mark I Vipers seen with the original series, for one, the fuselage now has hand and leg grips to allow the pilot to get in and out without the use of their ladders. I'm not sure if this design was incorporated into the earlier series as it was never shown on TV

Here's the Dual Seater Viper.Check out how the pilot uses the grips to haul himself up.

And then of course we got to see the Mark I Viper's escape "pod", which is actually the cockpit tub in "The Return of Starbuck" in one of Starbuck's signature landings. The funny thing here is that he was on a single seater fighter before he got shot down. Then he's in a dual seater cockpit configuration in that escape pod .... blooper?

Anyway, here's the rest of the dual seater Mark I Colonial Viper reference images.

Single Seater Mark I Colonial Viper

Dual Seater Mark I Colonial Viper