I just ordered this trade from Amazon.ca yesterday evening. That and the Romulan: Pawns Of War. A friend highly recommended them.
TOS Enterprise Shuttle Storage?
- Thread starter Auroratrek
- Start date
Distinction noted. I kinda wished they re-used those hallway scenes four times - it'd save me the trouble of figuring out how the hallways connect to the hanger or flight deck
Gentlemen,
although I'm very late to the party, many thanx for an in-depth coverage on the "hangar bay" issue (and some special thanks to Mytran for posting this close-up picture of the original Smithsonian Enterprise which enabled me - after more than 30 long years - to finally read the small print next to the saucer section's yellow airlock hatch - which I believe this to be).
I, too, believe there is a distinction between the "flight deck" and a "hangar deck" (if memory serves the fake Kirk wanted to have the crew assembled on the flight deck to witness the executions in "Turnabout Intruder").
One of the problems, please correct me where I'm in error, seems to be that the hangar deck is rather high and therefore it seems difficult to match the location of the circular shuttlepad in the live-action scenes with the circular shuttlepad of the flight deck VFX scenes because of the Enterprise's stern architecture - resulting in a rather long flight deck space to vertically allign both shuttlepads.
Question: Why do the shuttlepads have to be vertically alligned?
We have angled-in, diagonal Jefferies Tubes all over the ship, I have recently proposed a diagonal main (express) turboshaft running from (main) deck 2 through the neck section to the lower decks and I think to resolve the hangar deck-flight deck shuttlepad problem the easiest solution are diagonal hydraulics (or whatever) that lift the shuttlepad in an angle from the hangar to the flight deck.
And it is because of the diagonal lift, the shuttle rests upon it at a 90° angle so it doesn't touch the frame of the flight deck while it is uplifted... (for all practical purposes, i.e. Spock leaving in "Immunity Syndrome", it would otherwise make more sense if the shuttle is already in its launch position in the hangar bay and we'd be just seeing the shuttle's stern from the hangar deck door).
Another exterior design element of the TOS Enterprise is the stern rectangular red frame just below the flight deck. It's the same kind of red frame you'll find at the underside of the nacelles and the top of the impulse deck (L-shaped). I used to think it's some kind of maintenance hatch but now I rather believe it's a blow away emergency hatch. In an abandon-ship scenario the shuttlecraft could also come into use (think DS9 "Emissary") but with a ship wide power failure you probably couldn't open the flight deck doors, so it could make sense just to blow the hatch ("2001" + "Enemy Mine" style) and use the shuttles' systems to leave the ship - from the hangar bay, that is.
Bob
although I'm very late to the party, many thanx for an in-depth coverage on the "hangar bay" issue (and some special thanks to Mytran for posting this close-up picture of the original Smithsonian Enterprise which enabled me - after more than 30 long years - to finally read the small print next to the saucer section's yellow airlock hatch - which I believe this to be).
I, too, believe there is a distinction between the "flight deck" and a "hangar deck" (if memory serves the fake Kirk wanted to have the crew assembled on the flight deck to witness the executions in "Turnabout Intruder").
One of the problems, please correct me where I'm in error, seems to be that the hangar deck is rather high and therefore it seems difficult to match the location of the circular shuttlepad in the live-action scenes with the circular shuttlepad of the flight deck VFX scenes because of the Enterprise's stern architecture - resulting in a rather long flight deck space to vertically allign both shuttlepads.
Question: Why do the shuttlepads have to be vertically alligned?
We have angled-in, diagonal Jefferies Tubes all over the ship, I have recently proposed a diagonal main (express) turboshaft running from (main) deck 2 through the neck section to the lower decks and I think to resolve the hangar deck-flight deck shuttlepad problem the easiest solution are diagonal hydraulics (or whatever) that lift the shuttlepad in an angle from the hangar to the flight deck.
And it is because of the diagonal lift, the shuttle rests upon it at a 90° angle so it doesn't touch the frame of the flight deck while it is uplifted... (for all practical purposes, i.e. Spock leaving in "Immunity Syndrome", it would otherwise make more sense if the shuttle is already in its launch position in the hangar bay and we'd be just seeing the shuttle's stern from the hangar deck door).
Another exterior design element of the TOS Enterprise is the stern rectangular red frame just below the flight deck. It's the same kind of red frame you'll find at the underside of the nacelles and the top of the impulse deck (L-shaped). I used to think it's some kind of maintenance hatch but now I rather believe it's a blow away emergency hatch. In an abandon-ship scenario the shuttlecraft could also come into use (think DS9 "Emissary") but with a ship wide power failure you probably couldn't open the flight deck doors, so it could make sense just to blow the hatch ("2001" + "Enemy Mine" style) and use the shuttles' systems to leave the ship - from the hangar bay, that is.
Bob
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One reason for a three deck high flight deck would be too accommodate space craft larger than the standard shuttles that we saw on the show.
Bigger shuttles (and small starships) with double decks would require more room, this would explain the height and width of the aft "clamshell" doors, which are much larger than a shuttle needs.
I've also thought about a diagonal lift, but haven't worked out the details to see if it would actually work. The thing to remember it that the farther back the flight deck is the less vertical room you have between the edge of the lift and the inside curvature of the fantail, and it'd make for a tight squeeze.
Yes. I tried that approach and found the angle not friendly to the boxy shuttles, especially given the size of the opening for the elevator as seen from the flight deck shots.
The other thing is that in JTB and TIS is that we see the back wall behind the shuttle while in the hangar deck and it looks vertical, IMHO.
If you uplift the shuttle from the hangar bay to the flight deck in the position the shuttle had when it was first boarded, it seems an angle less than 45° is possible to deliver it to the flight deck without the hull of the shuttle being scratched by the opening. I'm enclosing this shot just to illustrate the ratio between shuttle width and shuttlepad diameter: http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x16/The_Galileo_Seven_020.JPG
It would, indeed, be a problem if the shuttle were uplifted with the bow first, already facing the clamshell space doors (again, just to illustrate the ratio) as the stern would hit the frame of the flight deck shuttlepad:
http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x16/The_Galileo_Seven_014.JPG
(And if you were to take the shuttle down to the hangar just the way it landed, the angled-in bow of the shuttle would not get in touch with the frame opening of the flight deck and therefore work nicely with a diagonal shuttlepad lift.)
Most likely it is a vertical wall of the soundstage IRL, but one that's completely devoid of discernible features that would tell us that the producers intended it to be vertical.
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x18hd/theimmunitysyndromehd0789.jpg
But if we were looking at a vertical wall and a vertical lift shuttlepad and considering the height of the hangar bay, would that not place the starboard side of Spock's shuttle outside of the ship given the unique architecture below the flight deck?
Bob
P.S. Does anybody know what the white text sign (?) on the port side of the flight deck says? (the one between the cargo container chutes or whatever these are).
P.P.S. Found this link with some unbelievably neat stuff and original VFX flight deck shots (including the text of the signs!):
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=34793
It also - in a multiple sense - puts the flight deck in perspective.
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It only becomes a problem if the flight deck is very short which would move the elevator further back over the fantail. It is not a problem on a longer flight deck from my 3D experimenting:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=119751&page=12
I did try an angled lift but for the complications of the shuttle hitting the flight deck opening it just looked simpler to have it go straight up/down especially given how small the elevator is to begin with, IMHO.
But it is worth revisiting since I am planning to try again at that flight deck
I salute your increcible and most commendable approach to bless us with a 3D recreation of the Enterprise that strives for accuracy and authenticity (I feel like I have 300 years to catch up as I simultaneously work myself through this thread and it's a highly enjoyable and thrilling experience).
In that sense I feel that the original, rare b&w pictures (link in my previous post) with that exterior shot of the VFX flight deck model miniature allow us to conclude exactly the position of the shuttlepad (and where the flight deck ends) in relation to the rest of the ship.
A shorter flight deck could enable allignment of the "engineering section's" cathedral with the nacelles' pylons and one might consider rationalizing the circular corridors in the engineering hull to run around the 'probe cylinder', i.e. an extendable cylinder with mission specific probe launching tubes (TOS-R "Operation Annihilate" BBD's
)."But it is worth revisiting since I am planning to try again at that flight deck
Words cannot express my gratitude. I'd also like to add that a diagonal, circular shuttlepad lift would also enable us to go down further to where I believe the freight deck would be. Thus cargo containers (TMP & WOK style) could be loaded onto the shuttlepad at the flight deck and could be lifted down all the way to the freight deck. One lift to serve two purposes.One page 2, post # 20 of this thread you were wondering about the square porthole in "Conscience of the King". As its location (according to TOS-R) is on the ship's port side, which happens to be the side of the VFX Enterprise that had never been detailed, IMHO, there is no need to expect the port side to be symmetrical to the (well known) starboard side.
A quick look at the underside of the saucer section reveals that the windows aren't always symmetrical:http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STEnterprise/ent66.jpg
And here, just for fun and detail clarity, another (behind the scenes) VFX shot of a shuttlecraft that just touched down on the flight deck:http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STShuttlecraft/galileoMod06.jpg
Bob
There is also the possibility that the turntable isn't an elevator at all. Heck, perhaps it is not even a turntable!
I mean, in the forced perspective scale model, it is a mechanism used in rotating the shuttle scale model. But basically it's just a yellowish circle painted on the deck inside a red square. If we discard the idea that it rotates or moves the shuttle, we can treat it as a mere marker (painted on a solid floor without moving parts) for the point where shuttle pilots are supposed to rotate their craft after landing. After which they can back it into one of the side-by-side elevators at the forward end of the landing bay (as later seen in ST:TMP and ST5:TFF, "naked" in the former, but with a bulkhead and rolling doors in the latter), and use those to ride down one or two decks. Straight down, and without inconveniencing other traffic. After which the pilot nudges the shuttle out of the lift and parks it in a further circle on the (upper or lower) hangar deck, and any Vulcan dignitaries onboard may step out.
...And march towards the bow of the ship, to a corridor situated neatly between the two lifts. Although that detail may be adjusted as we please, to create the best possible fit. Hey, we might even be able to fit the forced-perspective section of the engineering set between the two lifts at the uppermost, landing bay level somehow. Say, by using lifts that move an angled path, coming closer to each other as they move down.
Timo Saloniemi
I mean, in the forced perspective scale model, it is a mechanism used in rotating the shuttle scale model. But basically it's just a yellowish circle painted on the deck inside a red square. If we discard the idea that it rotates or moves the shuttle, we can treat it as a mere marker (painted on a solid floor without moving parts) for the point where shuttle pilots are supposed to rotate their craft after landing. After which they can back it into one of the side-by-side elevators at the forward end of the landing bay (as later seen in ST:TMP and ST5:TFF, "naked" in the former, but with a bulkhead and rolling doors in the latter), and use those to ride down one or two decks. Straight down, and without inconveniencing other traffic. After which the pilot nudges the shuttle out of the lift and parks it in a further circle on the (upper or lower) hangar deck, and any Vulcan dignitaries onboard may step out.
...And march towards the bow of the ship, to a corridor situated neatly between the two lifts. Although that detail may be adjusted as we please, to create the best possible fit. Hey, we might even be able to fit the forced-perspective section of the engineering set between the two lifts at the uppermost, landing bay level somehow. Say, by using lifts that move an angled path, coming closer to each other as they move down.
Timo Saloniemi
We may of course opt to discard only the elevator functionality and keep the turntable. That would already remove many unnecessary geometry constraints regarding the putative lower decks or the depth of the landing bay.
But if the shuttles really require a turntable to turn around, then it becomes rather implausible that they could move around the flight deck and the hangar decks on their own, into and out of the suggested forward elevators. And I don't really see why the shuttles could not hover to accomplish this, either on their propulsive systems, or then on dedicated antigravs, of the type familiar from many TOS episodes but now mounted on the landing pads.
I'd thus much rather do away with the turntable as well. Shuttles in all other Trek incarnations do appear to take care of themselves in this respect, despite lacking wheels.
Timo Saloniemi
But if the shuttles really require a turntable to turn around, then it becomes rather implausible that they could move around the flight deck and the hangar decks on their own, into and out of the suggested forward elevators. And I don't really see why the shuttles could not hover to accomplish this, either on their propulsive systems, or then on dedicated antigravs, of the type familiar from many TOS episodes but now mounted on the landing pads.
I'd thus much rather do away with the turntable as well. Shuttles in all other Trek incarnations do appear to take care of themselves in this respect, despite lacking wheels.
Timo Saloniemi
Sorry, the official drawing in The Making of Star Trek (page 180 in my edition) is very clear about the circular shuttlepad being a turntable which is part of an elevator:
http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/uss-enterprise-space-cruiser-sheet-4.jpg
What we see in TOS is the shuttlecraft being turned until the launching (or landing) rails are in a launch position:http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x06hd/thedoomsdaymachinehd1197.jpg (notice the top of the picture and the end of the miniature set)
The shuttlecraft also use a tailhook that seems to already come in use during catapult take-off. Very unfortunately, rather than to give us a fast catapult launch, the people in charge of TOS-R revised the entire original (and visible) intention and turned the shuttlecraft into some kind of chopper.
I see the turntable more as a convenience than a necessity, plus it lines the shuttle up nicely with the launch/landing rails.
I kinda see where Timo is going with his thinking. It looks like he is basing it on "The Final Frontier" where there is a circular "turntable" like structure in the middle of the flight deck, just ahead of the parked shuttles. (And the parked shuttles are just ahead of the two elevators with sliding doors.)
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tffhd/ch8/tffhd1109.jpg
Looking back to TMP, it's hard to tell if a circular area was there on that flight deck.
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0391.jpg
Although we can make out a rectangular area in the middle with lines in the middle leading out to the open shuttlebay doors (like the launch rails).
It's worth trying that idea out - although it will lead to a longer flight deck since the elevators at the end will add length. I do like the combined elevator and turntable though as it seems simple and retro compared to the elevators seen in TMP.
As to the differences between TOS and TOS-R, I put them in different continuities since the VFX is pretty different. TOS-R is more likely to come from the TNG+VOY+ENT-universe while TOS is it's own. For me it keeps the confusion down and simplicity up
I kinda see where Timo is going with his thinking. It looks like he is basing it on "The Final Frontier" where there is a circular "turntable" like structure in the middle of the flight deck, just ahead of the parked shuttles. (And the parked shuttles are just ahead of the two elevators with sliding doors.)
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tffhd/ch8/tffhd1109.jpg
Looking back to TMP, it's hard to tell if a circular area was there on that flight deck.
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0391.jpg
Although we can make out a rectangular area in the middle with lines in the middle leading out to the open shuttlebay doors (like the launch rails).
It's worth trying that idea out - although it will lead to a longer flight deck since the elevators at the end will add length. I do like the combined elevator and turntable though as it seems simple and retro compared to the elevators seen in TMP.
As to the differences between TOS and TOS-R, I put them in different continuities since the VFX is pretty different. TOS-R is more likely to come from the TNG+VOY+ENT-universe while TOS is it's own. For me it keeps the confusion down and simplicity up
I'd say the TOS-R people put right what once went very, very wrong.Very unfortunately, rather than to give us a fast catapult launch, the people in charge of TOS-R revised the entire original (and visible) intention and turned the shuttlecraft into some kind of chopper.
After all, the shuttle clearly is a chopper, as soon as it gets out of the mothership. It definitely has no use for catapult launches when planetside, is capable of hovering and maneuvering at hover, and can land with pinpoint accuracy between the most challenging styrofoam rocks or papier-mache trees. Why would it stop being a chopper when it again enters the bowels of the Enterprise? There never was any story logic to that, and the shuttlebay "turntable" and "catapult" design made no sense except as an extremely clumsy means of achieving motion with miniatures but without classic (and unconvincing-looking) stop-motion techniques.
The transporter somewhat mirrors the illogic. Machinery is required at one end, but not at the other - what's with that? But at least the transporter is magical. The shuttle is just a chopper that flies in space, intuitively familiar to the audience in all its characteristics.
Now, things could of course have gone differently. Had the shuttle been more like Jeffries' original aircraft-like designs, there would have been artistic merit to treating it like the auxiliary aeroplanes of 1930s-40s warships, with largish hangars, complex arrays of rails, switches, turntables, and a launching catapult. Hopefully, planetside action would have reflected the inability of the shuttle to land or take off vertically, too. But that's not what happened. Instead, we got a shuttle that by design has no use for turntables or catapults. Which is perhaps artistically less interesting, but makes for better scifi and cheaper production.
The thing we can do with a long shuttlebay is to divide the secondary hull functionally into lengthwise segments, rather than chop it up like a sausage. That is, the long shuttle facilities would take up the middle, while engineering would be atop (in TMP style, although various partitions make this "fact" difficult to see in TOS) and cargo systems below the shuttle section.
That's probably mandatory, alas. Each take has some pretty good ideas and some less interesting ones. I particularly like how TOS-R treated the ion pod...
Timo Saloniemi
I'd say the TOS-R people put right what once went very, very wrong.Very unfortunately, rather than to give us a fast catapult launch, the people in charge of TOS-R revised the entire original (and visible) intention and turned the shuttlecraft into some kind of chopper.
After all, the shuttle clearly is a chopper, as soon as it gets out of the mothership. It definitely has no use for catapult launches when planetside, is capable of hovering and maneuvering at hover, and can land with pinpoint accuracy between the most challenging styrofoam rocks or papier-mache trees. Why would it stop being a chopper when it again enters the bowels of the Enterprise? There never was any story logic to that, and the shuttlebay "turntable" and "catapult" design made no sense except as an extremely clumsy means of achieving motion with miniatures but without classic (and unconvincing-looking) stop-motion techniques.
If it is "wrong", the idea of a guided rail landing path is repeated in TMP for the flying trams. The TMP Enterprise even carries those 3 rails on the flight deck visible on the exterior model.
I'd argue that the TOS-R FX pushed too hard for a "TNG" vision and ignored alot of the visual cues that even persisted in the TOS Movies.
As to why they'd need a launcher in TOS it could be for important reasons:
1. Save fuel on launches. Those TOS shuttles had a limited fuel supply.
2. Safety during launch as the Enterprise can continue to maneuver while the launch rails prevents the shuttle from accidentally floating into a wall on departure.
I was sure I had these signs (WARNING FIRE etc) on my hard drive somewhere, but I've not been able to find them and now I see they've dissapeared from that thread you mentioned as well! Anyone got any copies?
And that's a great thread too BTW, some lovely pics!
Which is weird in its own right, but at least these "trams" (or "limos"?) do not demonstrate the ability to hover, nor do they have landing pads in evidence. It's just weird weird, not blatantly illogical weird. Much like San Francisco in general.
Interesting - could you point to a shot featuring these? Are they on the flight deck floor just inboard of the clamshell doors or something?
If we're already assuming the shuttle is too clumsy to survive without a turntable, then there must be some sort of an invisible tractor beam to assist in its recovery already. Why bother with a mechanical catapult in addition to that? Plus, it's not as if the launch would consume any appreciable amount of fuel, according to "The Galileo Seven": an empty fuel tank gets the shuttle to orbit, which is about a million times harder than floating out of the door.
...Okay, perhaps that was a bit inaccurate. Ten trillion times harder might be closer to the mark.
This does make great sense, considering how wobbly the TOS-R landings and takeoffs tend to be - and how wobbly the one takeoff we witnessed in TOS, that on the planet in "The Galileo Seven", was. So, a RAST system for a space helicopter, then, rather than a catapult for a space aeroplane?
Timo Saloniemi
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