Starships larger than heavy cruisers?

[Timo]

...why would you expect a civilian air terminal to have facilities large enough to accommodate a B-52?

Because civilian aircraft in general tend to be much bigger than military ones?

The same could be true of Trek starships, despite the fact that we tend to see really tiny freighters. A facility sized for the average starliner might well be able to accommodate six combat starships (say, Constitutions) or twelve Starfleet supply vessels (say, Sydneys) in the same volume.

Not that it'd be immediately obvious why a starliner terminal would need that protective shell any more than a combat starship base would...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

^ How much of that volume is occupied by corridors and turboshafts?

When I finish building out the bigger rooms and drop them in, I'll post an update to this thread

 

[SPCTRE]

I mean, you remember Monica's apartment in Friends? You always have to do SOME error-correction for Hollywood sets.

Did you have to mention that, now I have to look for discrepancies. Friends will never be the same

 

[Crazy Eddie]

...why would you expect a civilian air terminal to have facilities large enough to accommodate a B-52?

Because civilian aircraft in general tend to be much bigger than military ones?

What difference does that make, since the B-52 is larger than most civilian aircraft?

The same could be true of Trek starships, despite the fact that we tend to see really tiny freighters. A facility sized for the average starliner might well be able to accommodate six combat starships (say, Constitutions) or twelve Starfleet supply vessels (say, Sydneys) in the same volume.

Which all in all leaves you wondering why the lack of a terminal at O'Hare airport capable of parking a B-52 somehow negates the existence of the B-52.

Not that it'd be immediately obvious why a starliner terminal would need that protective shell any more than a combat starship base would...

I still think that shell is actually pressurized and the space doors include a forcefield curtain to keep the atmosphere in. The obvious intention being the avoidance of potential accidents if a docked vessel should suffer an airlock malfunction, and also to simplify the docking process in general by avoiding the need for fail-safe airlocks.

 

[STR]

...why would you expect a civilian air terminal to have facilities large enough to accommodate a B-52?

Because civilian aircraft in general tend to be much bigger than military ones?

What difference does that make, since the B-52 is larger than most civilian aircraft?

Only if you're limiting it to short haul and personal aircraft. A B-52 has considerably less weight and volume than a lot of planes that operate out of a modern airport. It's about the size and weight of a Boeing 767-200. A B-52 has about 1/4 of the volume and 1/3 the weight of a 747.

The 747 is faster than the Stratofortress too.

 

[publiusr]

There is the USS Inaieu, a Defender class starship, well over 1,600 meters.
But she existed in the fictional Duane-verse.

I'd like to see some artist tackle these designs

One of the things that might be interesting to explore would be a Post-TMP future where Excelsior did not come along, but refit era ships were enlarged. We see just such an example in the STO contest that would make for great SOTL material.

Here is an interesting concept

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n167/aridas_sofia/trek/apollo.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n167/aridas_sofia/trek/JetsonsEnterprise.jpg

It might be fleshed out by having an Ariel saucer or the saucer of the Refi era excelsior of Bernard Guignard, who did this TOS version.
http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php?&topic=163388671.0

--thinking that an Ariel saucer with ACE engines rising from a wider version of a Belknap secondary hull might make for a Large Exploratory Cruiser which the refit was going to be called originally...

 

[F. King Daniel]

I did a quick mock-up (just resizing Constitution-class components) of the Inaieu about a year ago, based on the descriptions in My Enemy, My Ally and The Wounded Sky, to get a rough idea what the ship would look like. The answer was: "Weird"
IIRC, a mile-long, quarter-mile-wide cylindrical central hull, a saucer double the diameter of the Enterprise's (still tiny), four nacelles, each twice the length of the Enterprise's (still tiny)... basically a giant cylinder with a tiny saucer and four tiny engines. One of the books called it something like "multi hulled", which may suggest several saucers or other modules along the main cylinder, but I think Diane Duane was working from her own ideas about the size of the Enterprise and it's components to begin with (this was long before the rigid rules, canon and whatnot that dictate Trek tie-ins nowadays. Duane's descriptions of warp speed through "otherspace" were pretty cool, too. It was very much Star Trek through her eyes)

 

[Timo]

I thought the saucer ought to be "three times the size"? Doesn't say if that means triple radius or perhaps triple volume. Still too small against a mile-long secondary hull.

Also, "multihulled" is from Wounded Sky where we might be talking about a different Inaieu, since it's a Defender class battleship rather than a Deneb class destroyer. Although I'd rather have the two be the same.

Wounded Sky also says the ships keep "their own 8-km limit" when flying in formation, whatever that means. Perhaps they're 8 km long overall?

FWIW, you get a decent ship if you double the nacelle length and triple the saucer diameter, but it's prettier still if you double the nacelle length and triple the saucer volume or top surface area instead. The engineering hull works all right if it's 1/4 mi long rather than 1/4 mi thick...

I think Diane Duane was working from her own ideas about the size of the Enterprise and it's components to begin with

This. We're probably allowed to argue that Kirk didn't quite grasp the old Imperial units and had the conversion factor reversed, trying to describe a secondary hull that was 1/1.6 km long rather than 1.6 km long...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

I also remember talk of the billion ton super spacers.

Here is an idea. Multi-hulled might just refer to tug containers in a long row. The SFB like tug has a big saucer, and there are warp nacelle sustainers. Toether they might form a floating battery, like the bigger of the Honorverse ships, made to cross the T but not an actual combatant by itself.

 

[Timo]

The Enterprise already has two hulls. "Multi" might mean no more than three hulls, possibly with a saucer both above and below, or both forward and aft, explaining why Duane considers the engineering hull of the Inaieu the "central" hull.

OTOH, it's pretty easy to create aesthetically passable Trek ships that have the trademark saucer and then a fairly large number of those small cigars that are so often seen as engineering hulls. Say, make the TOS Enterprise twice or thrice as large, and then add two pods on short pylons to the underside, like ventral Mickey Mouse ears, and place the deflector dishes on these: four hulls there already, in a ship that's distinct from the Newton of the newest movie, but very similar in general aesthetic. Indeed, when your ship already has four nacelles in + arrangement, a couple of small balancing hulls are good for the silhouette...

Still, there's something to be said for the idea that the Inaieu just has a trailing pod, and otherwise looks much like a four-nacelled Constitution... A slim trailing-pod arrangement could meet the "mile long" criteria for the central hull(s) without looking too ridiculous. The "1/4 mi across" criterion is the iffier one!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

That would be something from Starfleet Command type games, or perhaps an even wider Ariel type saucer, That I would like to see.
http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n167/aridas_sofia/trek/?action=view&current=arielmodel.jpg

 

[publiusr]

Something else I was thinking about. Atolm has this saucer attached to a Sona type wing.

http://federationreference.prophpbb.com/topic758.html

Aker might be 1/4 mile wide.

It remainds me about a novel's closing line about side-warp and the unified milky way welcomed into a Galactic Federation. Have that design by Atolm as a super-wide Chandley design, with containers here:

http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/ptolemy-class-starship.php
http://z8.invisionfree.com/CygnusX1_Forums/index.php?showtopic=305

Thus you can have what is after all an extended, super-wide primary hull that isn't completely obscene in its size. Also, from a top view, you have that Cardassian teardrop type thing going, and I would think that a teardrop shape, like a ringship is good for long durations, but less well at turning.

 

[MANT!]

^ But even then, why would you expect a civilian air terminal to have facilities large enough to accommodate a B-52?

As far as shroomdock, we're basically trying to deny the existence of a long range bomber by pointing out that it's too large to land at a civilian airport.

Quite the converse is actually true...most commercial aircraft are much larger than the combat types due to the higher capacity required to make a profit from passengers and cargo per flight.

SAC actually deployed bombers at civil airports several times during the Cold War..

[FONT=Arial]SAC used Air Force bases and civil airports as dispersal sites for B-47’s. Some of the civil airports were: Atlantic City Airport, New Jersey; Detroit Wayne Airport, Michigan, Lambert Field, Saint Louis, Missouri; O'Hare Field, Chicago, Illinois and Burlington Airport, Vermont. [/FONT]

http://www.strategic-air-command.com/bases/1-introduction.htm


The same would be true for spacecraft...

Starliners would be much larger than combat spacecraft..as a matter of economics..

 

[T'Girl]

What difference does that make, since the B-52 is larger than most civilian aircraft?

What do you mean, that it bigger than the average Cessna?

Not only are todays wide body civilian jets larger than the B-52, they are significantly larger. The brand new Boeing 747.8 Intercontinental is 250 ft long and the wingspan is 224 ft. Making it the new longest passager plane in the world.

In comparison the B-52 H model has only a length of 159 feet and a wingspan of 185 feet, about that of the thirty year old design of the Boeing 767.

The A340-600 is 247 feet long, wingspan 208 feet. The A380 is 238 long and the wingspan is 261 feet. Of the international airports around the world today, how many could accomidate a B-52 at the gate ...

All of them.

SAC actually deployed bombers at civil airports several times during the Cold War..

Only a few years ago, when I was working at Sea-Tac airport (Seattle Tacoma international Airport) as a bag thrower, the Air Force used to park C-130's and C-141's up near the south international terminal.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What difference does that make, since the B-52 is larger than most civilian aircraft?

What do you mean, that it bigger than the average Cessna?

Not only are todays wide body civilian jets larger than the B-52, they are significantly larger. The brand new Boeing 747.8 Intercontinental is 250 ft long and the wingspan is 224 ft. Making it the new longest passager plane in the world.

And most civilian airliners are not 747s, not are 747s usually used on short-haul national flights between cities. Thus a number of airports are not setup to properly handle anything that size, not a 747 and certainly not a B52.

And this is ignoring the fact that the majority of airports in the United States really aren't setup to handle anything larger than a leerjet, or at most a dreamliner. It's not like every city in the country has their own version of LAX.

Of the international airports around the world today...

Most airports are not international airports either. The original post was "Civilian air terminal," remember?

To that end, I can't remember the last time a stealth bomber landed at O'Hare Airport in preparation for trial runs. If Shroomdock is a major interplanetary terminal, then it's getting some pretty odd guests in Enterprise and Excelsior.

 

[Timo]

Sounds awfully nitpicky. But okay, let's return to the nautical roots of Trek a bit and remember that harbors certainly tend to be mixed civilian/military affairs, mainly because geography limits the options.

Medium Earth orbit lacks geography, but it isn't difficult to dream up equivalent limiting factors. The foremost of these would probably be that military and civilian starships alike require special resources that may be expensive to provide (or were expensive in the dawn of starflight, at the very least) - so separate civilian and military facilities would be prohibitively expensive. Cf. airship hangars...

Also, an enclosed facility in orbit would be fairly secure in the military intelligence sense even if civilians were coming and going; not much different from the general harbor area of San Francisco Bay, say. Starfleet might not dock the Prometheus or the Star Empire there, but various other fighting vessels would be a common sight.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Which kinda fits, but even in that case, not all harbors are created equal. You can probably dock your entire submartine fleet at Dutch Harbor in Alaska, but I don't think you'd want to try and berth an aircraft carrier there.

 

[Timo]

Yet conversely, if you can park a Caribbean cruiser, you probably will be able to fit any warship as well. Although modern cruisers tend to have more self-maneuvering ability than modern large warships, a few tugs would solve most of the related problems.

(Generic harbors might be beginning to have one problem that would affect warship berthing nowadays: lack of generic cranes. There'd be container cranes, boarding gangways, grain pumps and whatnot, but generic cranes might be mainly found at piers for smaller ships...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

And how many "carribean queen" type vessels did we see at shroomdock?

 

[Timo]

How many vessels overall? In ST3, one out of three big ships seen might have been civilian (the one around the pier to the left, the McQuarrie design), while in ST4 the big disaster would have made Starfleet invoke its priority clauses.

It may be that Spacedock is fully military. Or that at least its ship-processing functions are, never mind what the rest of the city is doing (again compare to modern seaports). But the idea that civilian and military starships would share a facility is pretty much in keeping with historical-dramatic precedent, and might thus be used to help explain the curious design and nature of Spacedock from a not purely military standpoint.

Timo Saloniemi