How fast are shuttle-craft/ runabouts
- Thread starter cwl
- Start date
Delta Flyer was able to travel faster than Warp 9 if I recall correctly.
The Danube ... I forgot it's specs really, but since they were used for interstellar travel and exploration, then it's quite likely their warp factor capability was within the 7 or 8 range.
Shuttles initially had a lower warp factor by design, however, tech advancement allowed them to go into the higher speed range, especially on ships that were on exploratory assignments and would want to scout space ahead.
Voyager modified probes for that for example ... a multi-spatial probe to my recollection (highly advanced, as well as warp capable).
The Danube ... I forgot it's specs really, but since they were used for interstellar travel and exploration, then it's quite likely their warp factor capability was within the 7 or 8 range.
Shuttles initially had a lower warp factor by design, however, tech advancement allowed them to go into the higher speed range, especially on ships that were on exploratory assignments and would want to scout space ahead.
Voyager modified probes for that for example ... a multi-spatial probe to my recollection (highly advanced, as well as warp capable).
...But only when augmented by a special Borg coil that didn't agree with Starfleet systems and eventually burned out, IIRC.
The Writers' Guide specs were for warp 4.7 top speed, which seemed to stick: in the episode "Dax", all ships and craft capable of warp 5 were considered viable escape vehicles for the villains, apparently meaning that the runabouts couldn't have given chase, and no other episode ever specified a higher speed for the runabouts, either. The DS9 Tech Manual supported this top speed as well.
The runabouts never did much "deep space exploring": Sisko wasn't supposed to do any of that, but was to sit behind his desk and manage a space station. The assorted liaison missions his crew performed were rarely of great range, unless they were also of extended duration - that is, the craft appeared rather slow.
Not really. Intragalactic travel would be prohibitively slow, yes: "Resolutions" makes the point that this unseen warp 4 shuttle (Type 9, thus perhaps related to the largish Type 9A described in TNG Tech Manual) could only have taken the stranded Janeway and Chakotay to Earth in several centuries, while their mothership could do that in decades. But ever since TOS, warp 4 has been a viable speed for a ship moving between stars: that is, skippers have commanded their ships to warp 4 for interstellar journeys. Even warp 3 has been quoted as a viable interstellar speed in the TNG era. This may suggest that the various warp speed charts around are incorrect in various ways...
Timo Saloniemi
What about the Starfleet Command Staff shuttlecraft? My guess it has a much higher top speed.
Article at Memory Alpha
Schematic
Article at Memory Alpha
Schematic
The 2390s craft flown by Admiral Janeway?
Hard to say. At least it had respectable interstellar speed, much like all of the VOY shuttles appeared to have. And it could outrun modern Klingon starships - the same ones that the Pasteur in "All Good Things.." was rather desperately trying to outrun at warp 13. So apparently there was a big leap forward in all UFP warp propulsion in the 2380s-90s, or a big leap backward in Klingon capabilities...
Timo Saloniemi
Hard to say. At least it had respectable interstellar speed, much like all of the VOY shuttles appeared to have. And it could outrun modern Klingon starships - the same ones that the Pasteur in "All Good Things.." was rather desperately trying to outrun at warp 13. So apparently there was a big leap forward in all UFP warp propulsion in the 2380s-90s, or a big leap backward in Klingon capabilities...
Timo Saloniemi
Oh, and one shuttle that was faster than the others was the Aeon. Another was the shuttle given to Kes, with her special help. I guess the transwarp flight that turned people into lizards and the Delta Flyer with a borg transwarp coil have already been mentioned.
They are presumably microcores that run along the top of the shuttle or beneath the flooring. The DS9 Tech Manual showed the Runabout core running along the top of the ship in right down the center of it.
They don't look like starship warp cores, since the reaction chamber and other parts are laid out according to the shape of the available space.
My gallery of Starfleet schematics shows all that for several different classes of shuttles and other small craft.
Starfeet schematics
My gallery of Starfleet schematics shows all that for several different classes of shuttles and other small craft.
Starfeet schematics
I always liked to imagine what it'd be like if they had a 24th century shuttle that could do at least warp 5 end up in the 22nd century and coming across the NX-01. They usually made a big deal about the fact that the Enterprise could only do Warp 5 and coming across something the size of there shuttlepods doing warp 5 would probably come of as a shock to them. Trip would probably fall in love with it.
Omega_Glory
Commodore
They had warp powered shuttles in TOS. Menagarie Pt I.
CWL,
One would think the shuttles would be faster. I mean to produce a space-warping field the size of a Constitution Class ship would be exponentially greater than one for a small shuttle.
Power to weight ratios tend to favor the small. That's why ants can lift a hundred times their weight and we cannot.
CuttingEdge100
One would think the shuttles would be faster. I mean to produce a space-warping field the size of a Constitution Class ship would be exponentially greater than one for a small shuttle.
Power to weight ratios tend to favor the small. That's why ants can lift a hundred times their weight and we cannot.
CuttingEdge100
On the runabout and the Type-7 shuttle they are, indeed, starship-like warp cores with a matter and antimatter injection squirting into a dilithium chamber. Smaller shuttles probably pack fusion reactors into the warp nacelles or (more likely) shunt plasma from the impulse engines in liu of an actual subspace driver coil.
Runabouts and shuttle-craft travel at the speed of plot. 
Capt'n! She cannae take it anymore! Her hole is all plotted up!
There was an episode in Season 6 ... Tsunkatse ... when Janeway was on the outer edge of Pendari system and increased to over Warp 9 and got just in time to provide critical support for Voyager to knock off the communication satellites off the main ship.
So it wasn't just Dark Frontier that we are talking here.
The Delta Flyer on the other hand was designed to incorporate a merge of SF and Borg technologies which made it as formidable.
One has to wonder why weren't they able to construct their own TW coils and use them on a regular basis.
It's possible they simply lacked the technology to do so ... but with the aid of Borg tech ... it should have been doable (I know I know ... the story itself would have been far shorter in that case).
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