D77-TC Pelican

Were you also looking for the D77H-TCI Pelican-class Dropship, used in Halo 3? Dropship 77-Troop Carrier

The Dropship 77-Troop Carrier (abbreviated D77-TC), more commonly known as the Pelican, is an extremely versatile craft used by the United Nations Space Command, mainly for the pickup and transportation of personnel, vehicles and equipment, although it can also be used as a powerful support gunship.

Background


The D77-TC Pelican is mainly responsible for the rapid insertion and extraction of ground troops. They also deliver vehicles and vital equipment to the battlefield, when required. The D77-TC has been in service for over fifty years, and is the primary tactical support aircraft of the UNSC. The Pelican serves a multi-role purpose; it is fully capable of atmospheric flight and can land almost anywhere without difficulty. The Pelican is also capable of limited spaceflight, which the UNSC uses as a primary way of delivering troops to the surface from orbit. Standard armament consists of one Class III externally powered projectile weapon at the fore of the vehicle, and one Class I gas-operated projectile weapon mounted at the rear, in the extended crew area. More heavily armed variants do exist, with multiple and more powerful weaponry.

Payload Capacity
The Pelican is capable of carrying passengers and cargo using a combination of internal and external methods. Specifically, the main compartment of the Pelican is sometimes called the "Blood Tray". The "Blood Tray" has enough compartment space for ten people (sitting down), but can hold five additional standing people. Other variants have displayed the ability to hold considerably more as demonstrated by specific scenarios throughout the Halo books. For example, the SPARTAN-II's were assigned a specialized Pelican, which was able to hold an entire team of twenty five, as well as fitting cutting gear to board a Covenant warship. Three Pelicans used for the SPARTAN-III Program carried 300 children though this may have been the effort of numerous trips back and forth from the surface.

The large aft overhang gives an attachment point for additional, cargo and ordnance. Possible payloads include a troop deployment pod, a Scorpion tank, a Warthog, or eight Resupply Canister Type-B Capsules. The maximum payload of a Pelican is seventy tons.

Armament
Standard armament consists of a chin-mounted 40mm rotary cannon which was common prior to 2525, but was later superseded by a 70mm chaingun. These weapons are usually controlled by the pilot's helmet so that it would aim in the direction of the pilots view, similar to the modern TADS/PNVS found on Apache Gunships or the HUD system in a SPARTAN's armor. Some dropships boasted twin chainguns firing depleted uranium slugs. .

Missile pods, each holding eight ANVIL-II ASMs, can be mounted under each wing to engage more maneuverable or better protected targets. Fire control is typically delegated to the copilot, who was assisted by a helmet-mounted display. An M247 GPMG or a 25mm grenade launcher can be mounted facing out of the rear cargo hatch; the weapons can be folded flat against the roof of the internal bay when not in use by the crew chief or a passenger.

Propulsion
The main engines are mounted in pairs in four nacelles, one on each wing and two at the rear. The nacelles can articulate independently, thus altering (i.e, Vectoring) the direction of thrust and improving the dropship's low altitude maneuverability. Six ventral thrusters, two on each wing nacelle and one on each aft nacelle, allow the Pelican to land and take off vertically. These engines are capable of both space and atmospheric operation. The D77, although fully capable of orbital insertion, is too small to be equipped with a Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, and thus is incapable of slipspace travel.

The wings mounted on a Pelican seem extremely small, too small to support the weight of dropship and payload alone. It is speculated that it incorporates at least some lifting body principles, its own hull providing most of the lift necessary.

D77H-TCI
Halo 3 introduces the new variant of the Pelican, the D77H-TCI Pelican (The "I" may stand for "Infantry"). Externally, it appears nearly identical to the Pelicans used in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, except for being more angular. Internally, though, the craft has been renovated and it can store equipment in overhead netting. The cockpit has been altered, and instead of the side-by-side positioning of the pilot and copilot, the pilot now sits at the fore of the dropship, with the co-pilot behind him/her, and at a higher position, in tandem.

Law Enforcement
Halo 3: ODST introduces a law enforcement-variant of the Pelican, operated by the New Mombasa Police Department and differentiated from its military counterpart by a black and white color scheme, "POLICE" replacing the traditional "MARINES" on the external hull, and a noted lack of armament. Under the craft's chin, where a machine gun turret or autocannon would normally be installed, are various interchangeable sensors used by the police for aerial surveillance and crowd control.

Identified Pelicans
Pelicans receive serial numbers to be identified by during radio transmissions, particularly in combat situations. Each serial number consists of a letter from the Phonetic Alphabet followed by a number. Though a few Pelicans have this number inscribed on their cargo bays, most have no distinguishing mark on their exteriors. It is unclear how the numbers are chosen, but with their spread across the alphabet and numerals, it can be inferred that a very large number of Pelicans are in service, perhaps as many as 26,000.

Trivia

 * All Pelican dropships in Halo: Combat Evolved bear either the numbers E419 (Echo 419) or V933 (Victor 933). This was likely done to save resources during the development of the game.
 * The Pelican shows clear inspiration from the UD4L Cheyenne dropship from the movie Aliens, which inspired Halo in many ways.
 * There is a glitch in the Halo 2 level Metropolis where the player can operate the Pelican. It will take the player out of the map, flip, and eject the player. If the player attempts to right the flipped Pelican, the script will read "Hold X to flip Banshee", because Bungie never intended for the Pelican to be operable by the player, and therefore did not make a unique message. The Pelican's in-game physics will make it impossible to correctly and permanently flip the Pelican, as it will always reposition itself in an upside-down position.
 * All Pelicans in Halo: Reach have "NOBLE" written on both of their wings, and have a machine gun added, similar to the Falcons. This likely implies that Noble has one or several Pelicans serving as dedicated transport vehicles.
 * Although the Pelicans in Halo: Reach are D77-TC Models, the cockpit's seating is just like the Halo 3-era's Pelican, the D77H-TCI Model, with the pilot in the middle up front and the co-pilot just a little to the left of the pilot's seat as well as the cockpit no longer being seperated by a door. This appears to be a retcon of the original as the D77H-TCI model was seen to have a much wider interior and seperate compartment that closed off the cockpit from the troop bay.
 * The version in Halo Reach is indeed a D77-TC due to the recognizable more angular shape, but since the game features most the UNSC Army's equipment and not the Marines, it's possible that the version seen in game is the Army version that features a TCI style cockpit, it's also possible that the Army version cockpit was later incorporated along with other new features into the D77H-TCI seen in Halo 3.
 * It is confirmed that in Halo: Reach you are able to pilot the Pelican on the campaign mission New Alexandria. To see how go To This guide.
 * Based on the above guide, to do this, you must go to the level New Alexandria and deactivate all the jammers, then go to the building on the right side of Club Errera and press a switch located on the bottom of the building's overhang. Then take your Falcon through a building with a large circular hole in it nearby and your Falcon will be replaced with a Pelican. Doing the same with a Banshee will give you a Phantom.
 * The Pelicans in Halo: Reach seem to be stronger than the newer Pelican model, the D77H-TCI, because in the mission The Pillar of Autumn, the Phantom that shoots down the other Pelican near Keyes' Pelican uses a weapon similar to the Light Plasma Mortar. While in Halo 3, the two Pelicans in the mission Sierra 117 are shot down by two Banshees' Fuel Rod Cannons.
 * The Pelican that was used to transport Carter-A259, Emile-A239, and SPARTAN-B312 doesn't seem to have a hoist because during the final cutscene in the Halo: Reach level, The Package, it shows the Pelican having some sort of UNSC Ammo Crate/Container in replacement of the hoist.
 * It is possible to summon a Pelican to transport cargo that takes too much time to get to your destination if they travel on foot, in Halo Wars. Select the 'Spirit of Fire' menu, then use the left analog stick to choose the 'Pelican' and get the forces you want transported into the cargo ship. However, the Pelican can sometimes be destroyed if its HP is too low, so you might need to quickly unload the cargo before it goes down. All your units onboard will be lost if the cargo transport is shot down.
 * All Pelicans in Halo: Reach have single-engine thrusters, rather than their future counterpart Pelican that has twin-engine thrusters. It is possible that the UNSC have upgraded their Pelicans to twin-engine thrusters by the time of the events of the Battle of Earth because they knew that The Covenant were going to attack Earth, much harder.
 * (Adding to the info above this line) Another possibility is that the UNSC were going to use Pelicans much more often then before. That's so that they get to locations and objectives faster. They probably will also use it for more space battles.

Related Pages

 * Phantom - The Covenant equivalent to the Pelican.
 * Spirit - Another Covenant equivalent to the Pelican.