TAS made real....
- Thread starter Warped9
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Oh, she does but it is subtle. The barbettes betray its existence (image of her as IX-40).
That's very mild tumblehome. A LOT of ship have had that and still do. It's no where near as intense as many French "Fighting Hotels" of the same time:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...French_battleship_Jaureguiberry_NH_88826_.jpg
Now THAT'S tumblehome - the kind you can write home about!
The whole complaint about tumblehome (and why so many Naval Architects hate the Zumwalt) is that it drastically impacts the righting moment when a ship heels over in a hard turn, or gets hit by a broadside wave. The more extreme the tumblehome, the more difficult it is for the ship to right itself after heeling over...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...French_battleship_Jaureguiberry_NH_88826_.jpg
Now THAT'S tumblehome - the kind you can write home about!
The whole complaint about tumblehome (and why so many Naval Architects hate the Zumwalt) is that it drastically impacts the righting moment when a ship heels over in a hard turn, or gets hit by a broadside wave. The more extreme the tumblehome, the more difficult it is for the ship to right itself after heeling over...
I do love the way it looks like a really old tech vessel. 
When MJ was initially searching for a final design for the Enterprise one of his early concepts was a ringship. Suffice to say this idea was never seen in TOS, but would surface in TMP as a visual reference to an earlier ship named Enterprise. Later this idea would resurface in other series as Vulcan ships. What that established was that a ringship was not something solely of Earth design.
But back during TOS there was nothing stopping the production crew from going back and reviving the ringship concept, but as an alien ship. To that end it could plausabliy have showed up as one of the multitude of ships adrift in "The Time Trap's" pocket universe. Mind you if they had done that it might have precluded the ringship idea being used in TMP so as not to confuse any particularly sharp eyed fans.
Nonetheless I like the idea of using this concept for something that would be seen for only a few seconds. I certainly like it more than most of the throwaway ships seen in the TAS episode. I initially wanted to work up something pretty simple but, alas, I couldn't leave well enough alone and set about adding some extra detail yet without going whole hog on it. Or at least not as detailed as I got with the Bonaventure (which still isn't as detailed as it could be).
But back during TOS there was nothing stopping the production crew from going back and reviving the ringship concept, but as an alien ship. To that end it could plausabliy have showed up as one of the multitude of ships adrift in "The Time Trap's" pocket universe. Mind you if they had done that it might have precluded the ringship idea being used in TMP so as not to confuse any particularly sharp eyed fans.
Nonetheless I like the idea of using this concept for something that would be seen for only a few seconds. I certainly like it more than most of the throwaway ships seen in the TAS episode. I initially wanted to work up something pretty simple but, alas, I couldn't leave well enough alone and set about adding some extra detail yet without going whole hog on it. Or at least not as detailed as I got with the Bonaventure (which still isn't as detailed as it could be).
You can avoid such confusion yourself if you clearly identify the ring ship as being of Vulcan design. The odd ship out is the decorative deck table design from FC. Call that one a scout ship of some kind, or part of a larger ship, and it still works.
At some point I will remake some of my live-action TAS images when I have made my own TOS E model.
Next up is another TAS vehicle we cannot deny the existence of, but I am not overly fond of it. I cannot help but think that if MJ had ever designed this vehicle it would have looked a lot more believable for its intended purpose.
There is simply nothing aquadynamic whatsoever about this design. It's very sci-fi in concept--a spacecraft that can double as a submersible, which is rather counterintuitive given the demands of each are at cross purposes. A spacecraft is structured so it doesn't blow out in the vacuum of space while a submersible is structured so it doesn't get crushed at ever lower depths under water. If we allow that TOS' 23rd century century has solved thse contradictions that still leaves us with a crude and overly simplistic looking vehicle that doesn't reflect a great deal of thought put into it.
Many real life submersibles are actually not sleek like a submarine, but those are used for purposes not requiring speed when submerged. Granted the TOS shuttlecraft isn't sleek either for the purposes of atmospheric flight, but then again it has antigravity capabilities which rather preclude the necessity of being aredynamic.
But we saw the aquashuttle in operation and it has to be able to go at a decent clip when submerged so you would think it should have some measure of aquadynamics for that purpose. And while it would have looked cool if it had looked more like the Flying Sub from Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea it really wouldn't have been that much more credible. Maybe if the aquashuttle had looked more like the Proteus from Fantastic Voyage it would be easier to suspend disbelief.
So my objective, here, parallels what I tried to do with the Bonaventure--come up with something that looks as if it could have appeared on TOS and has some semblance of a credibility capable of doing the things asked of it in the story.
Not only is the TAS version not drawn consistently--no surprise--but I really dislike those nacelles on the side. To me they look really out of place.
The real issue with this is that TOS could never, by any stretch, have done a story like "The Ambergris Element." The demands of the story would have have far exceeded the television resources at hand for a one time story. Star Trek was not Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea which had underwater action planned into it from the beginning. The Seaview and Flying Sub could be featured regularly because they could reuse existing footage after the initial shots had been filmed.
Now it's possible a story could have been concocted that referenced an aquashuttle without actually showing one or simply not showing it actually in a submerged environment, but that could be seen as rather cheating the audience.
Which brings me back to trying to fashion something more somewhat more believane as a live-action vehicle.
Time to grab a pen or pencil and sytart sketching...
Next up is another TAS vehicle we cannot deny the existence of, but I am not overly fond of it. I cannot help but think that if MJ had ever designed this vehicle it would have looked a lot more believable for its intended purpose.
There is simply nothing aquadynamic whatsoever about this design. It's very sci-fi in concept--a spacecraft that can double as a submersible, which is rather counterintuitive given the demands of each are at cross purposes. A spacecraft is structured so it doesn't blow out in the vacuum of space while a submersible is structured so it doesn't get crushed at ever lower depths under water. If we allow that TOS' 23rd century century has solved thse contradictions that still leaves us with a crude and overly simplistic looking vehicle that doesn't reflect a great deal of thought put into it.
Many real life submersibles are actually not sleek like a submarine, but those are used for purposes not requiring speed when submerged. Granted the TOS shuttlecraft isn't sleek either for the purposes of atmospheric flight, but then again it has antigravity capabilities which rather preclude the necessity of being aredynamic.
But we saw the aquashuttle in operation and it has to be able to go at a decent clip when submerged so you would think it should have some measure of aquadynamics for that purpose. And while it would have looked cool if it had looked more like the Flying Sub from Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea it really wouldn't have been that much more credible. Maybe if the aquashuttle had looked more like the Proteus from Fantastic Voyage it would be easier to suspend disbelief.
So my objective, here, parallels what I tried to do with the Bonaventure--come up with something that looks as if it could have appeared on TOS and has some semblance of a credibility capable of doing the things asked of it in the story.
Not only is the TAS version not drawn consistently--no surprise--but I really dislike those nacelles on the side. To me they look really out of place.
The real issue with this is that TOS could never, by any stretch, have done a story like "The Ambergris Element." The demands of the story would have have far exceeded the television resources at hand for a one time story. Star Trek was not Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea which had underwater action planned into it from the beginning. The Seaview and Flying Sub could be featured regularly because they could reuse existing footage after the initial shots had been filmed.
Now it's possible a story could have been concocted that referenced an aquashuttle without actually showing one or simply not showing it actually in a submerged environment, but that could be seen as rather cheating the audience.
Which brings me back to trying to fashion something more somewhat more believane as a live-action vehicle.
Time to grab a pen or pencil and sytart sketching...
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The aquashuttle has a bit of that Lincoln Futura look about the nose, with the manta ray "mouth". You could consider some of that sort of influence.
One solution to making it more believable would be to make the leading and trailing edges open like the bypass in a jet engine and imagine it's a caterpillar drive. And think of the boat-shaped cabin a bit like the splitter in the inlet of an XB-70 Valkyrie.
I roughed out a subcompact version of the aquashuttle for Starship Exeter, but dropped it for story reasons and practical considerations. I took the basic shape of the animated one and kept the swept back "wings" but sharpened the angle of the leading edge so it wasn't flat-on to the direction of travel. I made a very crude 3D mockup of the basic shape just to explore it before dropping it.
One solution to making it more believable would be to make the leading and trailing edges open like the bypass in a jet engine and imagine it's a caterpillar drive. And think of the boat-shaped cabin a bit like the splitter in the inlet of an XB-70 Valkyrie.
I roughed out a subcompact version of the aquashuttle for Starship Exeter, but dropped it for story reasons and practical considerations. I took the basic shape of the animated one and kept the swept back "wings" but sharpened the angle of the leading edge so it wasn't flat-on to the direction of travel. I made a very crude 3D mockup of the basic shape just to explore it before dropping it.
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The vehicles of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea were fanciful in of themselves. The Seaview is very cool looking, but that bow shape would play hell with pushing through the water as the nose would always want to put the ship into a dive. Those hefty cowlings over the aft screws also strike me as interfering with water flowing properly over the screws. Unless it’s supposed to actually be a caterpillar drive, but then where are the intakes?
The Flying Sub is also very cool, but it’s shape is all wrong for atmospheric flight or submerged operation.
The Flying Sub is also very cool, but it’s shape is all wrong for atmospheric flight or submerged operation.
Hmm, with respect I gotta' politely contest that. Between 1972 and 1975 I lived in an apartment complex and my buddy and I would often visit one of the 3 pools (the complex was absurdly large enough to warrant 3) and we'd often take our Aurora model kits of the Seaview and immerse them. Once we displaced all the air (our building skills were amateurish enough to leave seams and small holes to let water enter0 we'd give the sub the slightest of taps. That thing would gracefully cruise like a mother f... (shut yo' mouth, Bill), keeping an incredibly straight course. If anything, a structure like that would be h3ll to turn. To paraphrase what Ford Prefect said in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", that sub could "move like a fish, but steered like a cow". All that fins and "runners" ensured it would keep a straight line, but likewise played havoc, if we tapped it to "starboard" or "port", fighting the desired course change. Ironically, the models based upon real world nuclear subs we placed in the pool would "corkscrew", spin and veer all over the place like a drunkard was at the helm.
Great schematic as always. Love this re-imaging.
While seeing your points on the aquadynamics of that design, the irony is that view looks like the most sensible of the TAS shuttle designs, unlike the wild long-range shuttle, and the clunky heavy shuttle!Next up is another TAS vehicle we cannot deny the existence of, but I am not overly fond of it. I cannot help but think that if MJ had ever designed this vehicle it would have looked a lot more believable for its intended purpose.
There is simply nothing aquadynamic whatsoever about this design.
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