My TOS shuttlecraft (continued)...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
From this point onward I'm designating this design a Class F3 since it is a variant of an existing platform.
BTW, Phil Broad has been gracious enough to host this project on his site:
http://cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/...ans/Raymond_Lefebvre/RaymondLefebvrePlans.htm
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Fantastic work! 
This new design is growing on me. The new designation of F3 fits well to the design. Are you going to use the other design at all, because it looked very unique and also seem to fit into the design linage? Once again, great work and I am glad the Phil Broad let you use his site, a great guy too.
This new design is growing on me. The new designation of F3 fits well to the design. Are you going to use the other design at all, because it looked very unique and also seem to fit into the design linage? Once again, great work and I am glad the Phil Broad let you use his site, a great guy too. ltcmmanderdata
Lieutenant Commander
wow great job
Now that I've got this thing firmly established I'll get back to finessing the rest of the sheets to finish off this project and get them to Phil Broad for hosting.
My take on the shuttlecraft classification is that a Class F refers to a general type of vehicle, a general or multi purpose craft within a certain size that is also warp capable. A Class F2 or F3 would be a variant of that general purpose craft slated for something of a more specific purpose. My idea is that an F2 is probably near identical to a Mark 12B Class F, but fitted out for a more narrow purpose. An F3 is a variant of an pre existing Class F platform yet designed from the onset with more narrowly defined mission profiles (technically then, the familiar TOS shuttlecraft design would be a Class F1). I think this is an easier perspective to grasp than giving something that looks very similar in form and function a whole new classification. That said Starfleet personnel and even Federation civilians may just refer to any of these vehicles as a "Class F" without bothering to be any more specific.
Also, from the above standpoint you could have shuttlecraft that look rather different than the familiar TOS design and it, too, could also be a Class F type. From that perspective than my last previous design could also be a Class F3, although presently I have no plans to further flesh it out. And it would support the idea that more than one Federation (or UFP member world) contractor supplies Starfleet with these vehicles.
Presently I'm not thinking of trying to iron out the other classifications A to E. When I get around to rendering "real" versions of the TAS shuttlecraft I'll give them different classifications primarily because generally they are larger craft intended for more specific purposes and cannot be regularly berthed aboard a starship outside of specific and temporary circumstances.
My take on the shuttlecraft classification is that a Class F refers to a general type of vehicle, a general or multi purpose craft within a certain size that is also warp capable. A Class F2 or F3 would be a variant of that general purpose craft slated for something of a more specific purpose. My idea is that an F2 is probably near identical to a Mark 12B Class F, but fitted out for a more narrow purpose. An F3 is a variant of an pre existing Class F platform yet designed from the onset with more narrowly defined mission profiles (technically then, the familiar TOS shuttlecraft design would be a Class F1). I think this is an easier perspective to grasp than giving something that looks very similar in form and function a whole new classification. That said Starfleet personnel and even Federation civilians may just refer to any of these vehicles as a "Class F" without bothering to be any more specific.
Also, from the above standpoint you could have shuttlecraft that look rather different than the familiar TOS design and it, too, could also be a Class F type. From that perspective than my last previous design could also be a Class F3, although presently I have no plans to further flesh it out. And it would support the idea that more than one Federation (or UFP member world) contractor supplies Starfleet with these vehicles.
Presently I'm not thinking of trying to iron out the other classifications A to E. When I get around to rendering "real" versions of the TAS shuttlecraft I'll give them different classifications primarily because generally they are larger craft intended for more specific purposes and cannot be regularly berthed aboard a starship outside of specific and temporary circumstances.
Wow, warped9, I really love the details of the new design (and your take on the meaning of the Class F designation!) The one thing that initially gave me pause when I was looking at the drawings was the placement of the impulse deck placement, but I think I have gotten over that now, and I quite like it. 
I can't wait to see it finished.
I can't wait to see it finished.
One wonders... Would the impulse nozzles need to be placed symmetrically vis-á-vis the sagittal plane? After all, they aren't placed symmetrically vis-á-vis the horizontal plane in the original, either; they don't seem to provide thrust along the centerline of the craft, but off to the upper side, and for some <tech> reason this is not a problem.
That is, perhaps the nozzles could be to starboard while the aft door is to port?
Timo Saloniemi
That is, perhaps the nozzles could be to starboard while the aft door is to port?
Timo Saloniemi
If we accept the idea that the impulse drive is a reaction drive as we understand it then in all honesty both the shuttlecraft and the Enterprise are way off in not having the engines anywhere near the ship's longitudinal centre of mass. So something else may be going on here that onviously isn't or cannot be explained or reasonably rationalized. We pretty much have to accept it as is.
Timo's suggestion is interesting. Because it brings to mind two of my favourite SF ship designs: Star War's B-wing fighter and the Milenium Falcon, which are all about asymetry and look damned cool too. We haven't seen anything really like that in Star Trek, but it's an interesting possibility to ponder.
On a point I made in a previous post regarding different looking Class F shuttlecraft. I suppose it could be entirely possible that another starship's complement of shuttlecraft could be predominatly or wholly of another type than those we're familiar with.
The TMP style shuttlecraft also suggests another possibility. If you have an anti-grav drive then perhaps you don't need impulse. Indeed the impulse engine could be a form of antigrav drive and could explain why the drive unit isn't situated along the craft's centre of mass. It could also explain why the Enterprise's impluse drive is so small in relation to the size of the ship. If Federation science can harness and manipulate gravity and anti-gravity on a small scale (antigrav grapplers) then why not on a large scale such as the impulse drive on shuttlecraft and starships?
Timo's suggestion is interesting. Because it brings to mind two of my favourite SF ship designs: Star War's B-wing fighter and the Milenium Falcon, which are all about asymetry and look damned cool too. We haven't seen anything really like that in Star Trek, but it's an interesting possibility to ponder.
On a point I made in a previous post regarding different looking Class F shuttlecraft. I suppose it could be entirely possible that another starship's complement of shuttlecraft could be predominatly or wholly of another type than those we're familiar with.
The TMP style shuttlecraft also suggests another possibility. If you have an anti-grav drive then perhaps you don't need impulse. Indeed the impulse engine could be a form of antigrav drive and could explain why the drive unit isn't situated along the craft's centre of mass. It could also explain why the Enterprise's impluse drive is so small in relation to the size of the ship. If Federation science can harness and manipulate gravity and anti-gravity on a small scale (antigrav grapplers) then why not on a large scale such as the impulse drive on shuttlecraft and starships?
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One might even blame gravity manipulation for all of the futuristic propulsion achievements of Trek. The drive that warps space for FTL movement? Why, it sounds exactly like gravity manipulation technology!
OTOH, it may well be that gravity can be reduced or increased or directionalized, but it cannot be used for actually "bootstrapping" the gravity device into a state of motion. That is, it cannot be used for acceleration or deceleration as such, but only in combination with some other device that produces the accelerating force.
Some shuttles might have relatively mild inertia-nullifying fields coupled with a super-duper rocket which uses Newtonian principles but boosts those with gravity manipulation (and perhaps redirects the force vector so that the exhaust doesn't have to point in any particular direction). Others might use tiny conventional thrusters but would have a super-duper inertia nullifier.
The former might be better for craft that are expected to land on planets: it would be awkward to bring down a craft in windy conditions if its total inertial mass is two grams but it has the surface area of a large van. The latter might be what is used on purely spatial craft that never feel the wind, including all those TMP contraptions that had the exposed spatial docking ring (travel pod, both sizes of Probert shuttle, possible others). Or then there would simply be different performance characteristics for shuttles with differently "balanced" drive systems, but even the Probert ones could make planetfall, and even Class F would perform adequately in space.
Timo Saloniemi
OTOH, it may well be that gravity can be reduced or increased or directionalized, but it cannot be used for actually "bootstrapping" the gravity device into a state of motion. That is, it cannot be used for acceleration or deceleration as such, but only in combination with some other device that produces the accelerating force.
Some shuttles might have relatively mild inertia-nullifying fields coupled with a super-duper rocket which uses Newtonian principles but boosts those with gravity manipulation (and perhaps redirects the force vector so that the exhaust doesn't have to point in any particular direction). Others might use tiny conventional thrusters but would have a super-duper inertia nullifier.
The former might be better for craft that are expected to land on planets: it would be awkward to bring down a craft in windy conditions if its total inertial mass is two grams but it has the surface area of a large van. The latter might be what is used on purely spatial craft that never feel the wind, including all those TMP contraptions that had the exposed spatial docking ring (travel pod, both sizes of Probert shuttle, possible others). Or then there would simply be different performance characteristics for shuttles with differently "balanced" drive systems, but even the Probert ones could make planetfall, and even Class F would perform adequately in space.
Timo Saloniemi
Assuming impulse engines are coil drives then they might be conveniently fitted inside the nacelles, the exhaust vents on Trek ships are just there to get rid of the stuff thats leaving the fusion reactors you don't need to have big exhausts at all.
Might be also an explanation of why the appearantly impulse only shuttles can hop to FTL speeds for a short while, if you mix a certain amount of impulse coils with warp coils inside the nacelles.
Just a few thoughts
Might be also an explanation of why the appearantly impulse only shuttles can hop to FTL speeds for a short while, if you mix a certain amount of impulse coils with warp coils inside the nacelles.
Just a few thoughts
Oh, so no quantum delineator isocomframulating through the dilithium matrix, then?
I dunno, it does go with the TOS theme of having dangerous stuff out of the way and important stuff near you at a convenient position so you can repair it if needed.
Not sure about that: the interiors of TNG ships tend to have vanity covers over everything crucial, and it would seem logical to blame the smooth paneling of the TOS interiors on the same thing. Indeed, DS9 "Trials and Tribble-ations" retcons that there indeed were vanity covers on the TOS ship corridors, removable so that key GNDN piping would be revealed, and that the visible pipes and valves on the corridors were but a fraction of the actual accessible hardware.
That in mind, the whole back wall of the shuttle aft compartment could be vanity covers. The compartment would serve the double function of being the much-needed separate lavatory and storage room and an access point for the power and motion hardware.
While our heroes did wish to check out the exterior of the shuttlecraft in "Galileo Seven" and "Metamorphosis", this could be argued to have been in addition to internal access, not in lieu of it. In both cases, our heroes had a reason to fear external damage to their craft, and less reason to suspect internal (or purely internal) malfunction...
Timo Saloniemi
That in mind, the whole back wall of the shuttle aft compartment could be vanity covers. The compartment would serve the double function of being the much-needed separate lavatory and storage room and an access point for the power and motion hardware.
While our heroes did wish to check out the exterior of the shuttlecraft in "Galileo Seven" and "Metamorphosis", this could be argued to have been in addition to internal access, not in lieu of it. In both cases, our heroes had a reason to fear external damage to their craft, and less reason to suspect internal (or purely internal) malfunction...
Timo Saloniemi
An open letter to Warped9, I recently found this site, and have enjoyed reading the posts on your TOS shuttlecraft concept for some time now. I'm impressed by the way you express and describe your ideas, and artwork. Even so by those who post comments on it. They seem knowledgeable and intelligent arguments about your work and star trek. I've been inspired by that example and will post some of my own soon. I only hope to get a similar caliber of people to review my work that you have attracted. And look forward to seeing your work continue.
I was thinking maybe an aft section more like this? I can conceive of a slight alteration of the aft interior, but still within tos canon. relocating the 4 large oxygen tanks more port and starboard to make room for the aft center hatch. Also a small change in the impulse drive.
I was thinking maybe an aft section more like this? I can conceive of a slight alteration of the aft interior, but still within tos canon. relocating the 4 large oxygen tanks more port and starboard to make room for the aft center hatch. Also a small change in the impulse drive.
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