Re-imagine: Star ship class II

[Wingsley]

At first, one can puzzle over the design. The saucer is "right side up", compared to the Enterprise, but everything else is re-oriented "upside down".

Once I wrapped my brain around it, I liked it. To put it plainly, the same design sense that makes the Enterprise work should make Spitfire work. I think Spitfire is a very clever, if visually shocking, design.

 

[Starscape]

"Visually shocking", huh? I like it!!

I guess I'm a little too close to the design now to view it impartially, but I have to admit it initially took me some time to get used to the design while I was developing it (but then it did take a few attempts before I was happy with the size of the secondary hull).

At times I still think it looks a little top-heavy... which doesn't really make much sense for a ship designed to travel in zero-g.

 

[Wingsley]

Spitfire is no more top heavy than Enterprise.

 

[Captain Intrepid]

Starscape said:
"Visually shocking", huh? I like it!!

I guess I'm a little too close to the design now to view it impartially, but I have to admit it initially took me some time to get used to the design while I was developing it (but then it did take a few attempts before I was happy with the size of the secondary hull).

At times I still think it looks a little top-heavy... which doesn't really make much sense for a ship designed to travel in zero-g.

I think if you extended the sloping surface beneath and in front of the deflector farther forward till it almost reaches the bridge or is level with the base of the bridge it'd help balance the design.

 

[Kaziarl]

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but in one of my old trek art books there was a concept sketch of the USS Enterprise that someone looked at upside down, and thats how we got the USS Enterprise we all know and love today. TOS should be watched with your tv upside down apperently.

 

[Sean_McCormick]

Kaziarl said:
I don't know if this has been mentioned, but in one of my old trek art books there was a concept sketch of the USS Enterprise that someone looked at upside down, and thats how we got the USS Enterprise we all know and love today. TOS should be watched with your tv upside down apperently.

Such a configuration has indeed been considered (Fanon calls it the Ranger-class), but AFAIK the producer looks at design upside-down story happened in TWOK with the Reliant.

 

[yenny]

Starscape said:
It's difficult, at least for me, to throw out all ideas of post-TOS stuff to come up with something purely from the perspective of TOS. With Franz Joseph's designs and those designs of the kitbash type from TNG and beyond I guess I fall into the trap of thinking that contemporary starship designs should be made up of similar (or even identical) components. If TOS had had the budget to come up with another Starship design (and I truely wish they had) it might have been as different in design from the Enterprise as, say, the freighter seen in TAS (and more recently TOS-R).

Anyway, here's an old-ish design of mine that I think of as a TOS era frigate:

It look like one of the drawings of Matt Jefferies. Back when they were figgering what the Enterprise should look like.

 

[Starscape]

I dug out my copy of "The Art of Star Trek" book, here's some scans of Jefferies initial starship designs:

It's been quite some time since I last looked over these. I didn't consciously base the Spitfire on any of these designs but there are obvious similarities with a couple of them.

Plus, they could count as options for Wingsley's Starship type II.

 

[Wingsley]

Or a much smaller Star Ship III Class.

What was the title of that book?

I've seen the top picture posted in these forums, plus others that I believe were scanned from reprints in the "Star Trek Communicator" magazine.

 

[Sean_McCormick]

The name of the book is:

Starscape said:
[...]"The Art of Star Trek" [...]

and it appears to be still in print:

Page at Amazon.com