I never liked the idea of locating the escape pods in the floor of the engineering section as most artists depicted the location in their drawings and plans.
Then in the final three movies - the location was kind of revealed. The escape pod that Rey got in was launched from the starboard side, rear landing gear housing!
So after watching the movie - I began to think about how to make it fit and work from a 1:1 design point of view.
So I can up with the following:
The escape pod pre-launch space might work in the "hold" on the starboard side, behind the entry ramp,
below the main deck. See the top view cut-away and the side view dissolve above. (I probably need to obtain a screen grab of the shot where the Falcon drops out of hyperspace the escape pod door opens - to get the exact escape pod launch tube alignment inside the landing gear housing.)
In this solution the escape pod would, after the pod door was closed, move down a track (like a ride) into the launch tube in the landing gear housing. In this process the pod would have to swing as it moved down the track.
Then in the final three movies - the location was kind of revealed. The escape pod that Rey got in was launched from the starboard side, rear landing gear housing!
So after watching the movie - I began to think about how to make it fit and work from a 1:1 design point of view.
So I can up with the following:
The escape pod pre-launch space might work in the "hold" on the starboard side, behind the entry ramp,
below the main deck. See the top view cut-away and the side view dissolve above. (I probably need to obtain a screen grab of the shot where the Falcon drops out of hyperspace the escape pod door opens - to get the exact escape pod launch tube alignment inside the landing gear housing.)
In this solution the escape pod would, after the pod door was closed, move down a track (like a ride) into the launch tube in the landing gear housing. In this process the pod would have to swing as it moved down the track.