SKT-9 Bumblebee

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The Bumblebee^[1] is a standard escape pod for the UNSC. It is 10.5 meters long, making it longer than a Scorpion.^[2] It can hold up to nine people (Pilot + 8 passengers) and it has enough supplies to last a week before it runs out of food and clean air.^[3]

Most UNSC Ships carry several sets of these, and at most airlocks, there is at least one of them stationed. Like Pelican dropships, each has a call sign, usually consisting of three letters from the Phonetic Alphabet, followed by a two-digit number.

Features

Bumblebee lifepods are designed to ferry up to nine people at a time. They have one pilot seat as well as eight side-facing crash seats. The seats have harnesses to keep people from injury when crash-landing. The effectiveness of the safety features on the Bumblebee vary greatly, as can their reliability. Some of the Bumblebees featured in Halo landed without any injuries, while a lot had catastrophic failures resulting in the deaths of all or most aboard. Most of the lifeboats seen had several Marines who apparently did not survive the descent to Installation 04.

Bumblebees have little in the way of maneuverability. They feature thrusters and air-brakes to slow down during descent, but they can not reach escape velocity and leave a planet's atmosphere on their own. Also, normally after a landing, the pod can never be used again, as the pods will probably suffer a great amount of damage, including the air brakes breaking off in the impact.

The UNSC Pillar of Autumn carried a complement of these, 12 to be exact. Most of them were used to evacuate the vessel when it was shot down during the Battle of Installation 04^[4] on September 19, 2552.

Known Bumblebees

Trivia

The Bumblebee only plays a role in the level "Halo", but has slight appearances in Pillar of Autumn.
They can only be piloted in Halo: Custom Edition and through modding in Halo Combat Evolved.
The Bumblebee is only seen in "Halo Combat Evolved"
The Bumblebee is not really "driveable" because it is an escape pod and can only steer.
The Bumblebee's front window is "breakable". If you make a Warthog hit it hard by propelling it with an explosive, the window will make a breaking sound but will still appear to be intact.
There is some animosity between Bumblebee pilots and Pelican pilots. ^[5]
If you look closely, you can see that when the Master Chief's escape pod launches, it still has its rear hatch open.
It is possible that the Master Chief's presence on the escape pod contributed to the failure of the pod's landing routine: combined with his MJOLNIR Mark V Armor, John-117 weighed nearly 1,000 pounds^[6], which in addition to 7 or 8 Marines and a pilot may have put the pod's mass in excess of its design specifications. On the other hand, it is also unlikely that the Bumblebee's designers would utilize highly constrained mass profiles in designing the pod, given that atmospheric resistance and gravity vary considerably from planet to planet.
The pilot's helmet closely resembles the helmet that Motoko Kusanagi wears in Ghost in the Shell on certain occasions.
The name bumblebee may have been given because of the nature of the craft. When the craft hits the surface it will most likely not be able function again. Very much like how once a bee has used it's sting it will die.

Gallery

The Bumblebee design.
Bumblebee Cutaway.
A crashed Bumbleebee, its reverse thrusters smoking from recent discharge. The lifeboat cut a sliding trench into the ground on impact.
A Bumblebee Pilot.