It would be interesting to take a count of just how many were either destroyed or severely damaged that we saw in the show.
Not to mention the considerable loss of eagles in "Breakaway", which would imply quite a few of them were still flying at the time of the chain reaction.
______
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
Actually, there were only two eagles that were lost on "Breakaway" prior to Area Two going up (Koenig's ship at Area One and the robot eagle). Then only six of them had been refitted for the waste area at the time of the explosion.
Supposedly there were eagle bays at every regular launch pad. And they've used eagles 26 and 28 through the course of the show, so there were at least that many.
We SAW two eagles destroyed in Breakaway, as I recall, but there was an implication there were a larger number of them still flying in the effort to redistribute the waste. I don't recall there was a recall order given or whether there was even time. Anything on that side of the Moon should have been pulverized, or, surviving that, either crashed into the surface, hard, during the G-force period, or, more likely if they were on the far side, left behind during the acceleration.
Anyway, I always found that amusing, as a kid, when I first watched the show, since most weeks they lost at least 2-3 eagles, it seemed. Over the run of the show that would add up to more than 28. Of course, I wonder if they later threw in the 26-28 numbers because the writers realized they had to account for a great many of them being lost.
______
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
On "Breakaway" Paul informed Koenig that the first six eagles that had been converted were heading for the disposal area. Those were the only ones we saw when the explosion occurred (besides Carter flying the Commissioner's Eagle). Koenig ordered the mission aborted after the first eagle was destroyed. There's a deleted scene showing the others trying to flee the area (glimpsed during the "This Episode" sequence in the opening titles).
Not including "Breakaway", I only count no more than a dozen ships being lost/destroyed on season one. "The Infernal Machine" and "The Last Enemy" resulted from enemy attack ("War Games" doesn't count).
I only count four on season two.
I seem to recall feeling the "that were converted" meant to imply an addition, but that could be an erroneous memory. Not that it matters a whole lot; it just seemed like those s1 episodes were losing ships right and left.
I've only seen less than half of the s1 online eps since re-discovering the show, and a couple s2 eps, so perhaps that pace wasn't kept up in other episodes.
For that matter, since you mention Infernal Machine and Last Enemy, it seems they suffered a lot of damage to Alpha, itself, not to mention command seeming to have fires starting, debris from the ceilings, even structural beams falling down from time to time! They must have had one hell of a construction crew and an amazing amount of supplies...
______
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
On "Breakaway" Koenig sent Carter into orbit to observe the Disposal Area but had to use the Commissioner's eagle because the others were "all committed" - six were at the disposal area and the rest were at the base being converted.
The base suffered no structural damage on "The Infernal Machine" and a couple of launch pads were torn up on "The Last Enemy". The base was upheavaled on "War Games" and the entire moon blown up on "Matter of Life and Death", but both those episodes were "reset" at the end.
On season two, outlying areas were bombarded on "The Metamorph" and "New Adam New Eve", but "The Dorcons" was the one with heavier damage which frustrates me at the episode's end; it seems like the episode only lasted a few hours (Alpha time), but at the end Tony declares "Damage repairs well in hand" as though a quick spackling was all the place needed.
In "The Last Sunset" novelization, Koenig mentions that there are "27 serviceable Eagles...".
I don't remember exactly, but I believe he says the same thing in the episode when he insists that every Eagle take part in the search.
AE36
Yes, it was on the episode, implying that the stranded eagle would've been the 28th, but there could be others that weren't "serviceable", under repair or whatever.
sharehttp://catacombs.space1999.net/main/cguide/umeaglecrash.html
shareNice summary of crashes. However, those don't include the various Eagles destroyed via other means (such as being blown to bits by enemies)
______
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
I thought Bergman was a little too sympathetic with Gwent, as two eagles were destroyed and the pilots obviously killed.
shareI think it's likely that the Eagles were made on the Moon with lunar resources and that there was an production plant somewhere under Alpha. The Alphabs actually had an advantage over something like ST:Voyager as they had plenty of resources to repair the Eagles, in contrast the USS Voyager would have had to make do as best they could.
The big inconsistency with the Eagles as they always used the same numbers, Eagle 1 would get totalled and then next week it was as good as new. They should have simply added new numbers on in sequence.
It's possible that they could've re-numbered one of the two-digit eagles as Eagle One (or other lower numbers) if the previous one had been totalled. You definitely don't hear of as many two-digit Eagles on season two as you did on season one.
shareI think in an episode of season 1 Koenig states that they have 23 operational Eagles, or something like that.
shareWhich would imply the must have had quite a few more when they started. Seems like they were losing a few Eagles every week in the early episodes!
______
You spell God with a G, I spell Nature with an N. Capital. - Frank Lloyd Wright
One late episode shows a hangar under one of the launch pads with quite a few eagles there. Two plus the one on the pad, and it crashed into at least two more deeper inside the hangar. Not sure but looked also like there was some assembly process going on as well. Which bears out the idea that they were building replacements either from materials in stock, or mining and fabricating parts. Who knows.
But in that episode one eagle lost. One or more probably damaged a little or alot.
The episode was "Space Warp". Several eagles were parked inside, but didn't look like any were being assembled. One was fitted with additional vertical boosters, and there were various attachments stored next to them.
Portable stairways were seen, used for repair or ordinary maintenance.
It seemed as though several were destroyed during Breakaway because of the recovery operation but I don't recall so maybe it just seemed like more. Of course in some eps they lost multiple (such as the one with the mechanical spiral machine who had a human he called "Companion")
Yes, I recall the scene where they outfitted them in the hangar but mining and producing new ones from scratch would require a bigger operation than it seemed like they had there. A population of several hundred would not be enough to run mining, smelting and full manufacturing operations. You'd need a full, operating city-colony for that, at least
______
You spell God with a G, I spell Nature with an N. Capital. - Frank Lloyd Wright
The first six eagles fitted to haul the waste arrived at the waste area, but during the operation Paul announced that two of them experienced navigational failures and returned to base for repair. So there were only four out there when the area erupted.
I couldn't picture them building the eagles from scratch either. They probably salvaged spare parts from wrecked ones and had fewer functional ships as they went along.
But at the same time, personnel was also being reduced; it was totally illogical, though, to start with 311 on "Breakaway", then have Helena announce that they were at 297 on "The Metamorph".
Nine men died before the moon broke away, but Earth wasnt informed, so they had to have been counted as part of the 311.