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In the re-imaged BattleStar Galactica Season 2 Episode 19 Starbuck leads a team of Raptors back to Caprica. But they only have 1 Cylon FTL drive.

From the BattleStarWiki:

..they will use 20 Raptors and use the navigation computer/organ from one of the captured Heavy Raiders to calculate the jumps back to Caprica. Using this, they can make it back to Caprica in a series of 10 jumps.

How is it with only 1 Cylon FTL drive they were able to transport 20 Raptors?

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    Wasn't the Raptor craft like an AWACS support craft / personnel carrier? They all had FTL drives. The key part of your quote is ...and use the navigation computer/organ from one of the captured Heavy Raiders to calculate the jumps...
    – Xantec
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 16:41
  • The Raptor was basically an all-purpose craft. It could be a personnel transport. It could perform AWACS duty. It could be fitted with outrigger missile launchers to perform fire-support. It basically did whatever it was called upon to do.
    – eidylon
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 16:49

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The answer is in your quote.

...they will use 20 Raptors and use the navigation computer/organ from one of the captured Heavy Raiders to calculate the jumps back to Caprica. Using this, they can make it back to Caprica in a series of 10 jumps.

They did not use the FTL drive, they used the navigation computer to calculate the jumps.

Colonial FTL performance can be improved, demonstrated when a Raptor is successfully refitted by a team apparently led by Lieutenant Felix Gaeta with the navigational computer from a captured Heavy Raider (presumably the one used by Kara Thrace to return from Caprica in "Home, Part I") and, with the cooperation of a Number Eight, is used to navigate a squadron of Raptors back to Caprica on a rescue mission to retrieve a group of resistance fighters (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I). A massive distance that would have taken Galactica 241 jumps one way (~482 jumps total), the Raptor squadron does in only 20 (10 to Caprica, 10 back).
- ref

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    So the only limitiation of the FTL drives is their abilitiy to compute jump points? And as such you can just punch any coordinates into your FTL drive and execute it?
    – Jack B Nimble
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 17:00
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    @Jack: Yes, except the further you go, the less accurate your jump out will be, leading to likely issues with jumping in a bad spot (Or would, except for the fact that space is mostly empty...)
    – PearsonArtPhoto
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 19:29
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    @JackBNimble Yes, for example see Kara entering coordinates into the Galactica's jump drive in one of the last episodes of the series.
    – user1027
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 22:12
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    @Pearsonartphoto, indeed one of the raptors jumped straight into a mountain - a classic "bad spot"
    – LRE
    Commented Jan 4, 2012 at 22:35
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    @Jack B Nimble It's not unlike say... firearms. Many firearms can shoot further than their "practical ranges", but with greatly reduced accuracy, it's not helpful at those distances. Here, the computers have to calculate where everything will be vs. what you see on sensors (discrepancy between where everything actually is, vs. accounting the speed of light). There are A LOT of extra variables when you add another 5 years into that equation.
    – ackmondual
    Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 17:37

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