Who is in charge of the shuttlebay?

[T'Girl]

Which has ZERO bearing on whether or not the shuttlebays operate in the same manner as an aircraft carrier.

Okay stop, how do you see what is basically just a large room, operating in the manner of an entire ship? The starship that contains that large room doesn't operate like a aircraft carrier.

The starship's primary mission, it's whole reason to exist at all, isn't to facilitate shuttle activities.

 

[Timo]

The Maquis didn't. Ro did. And she had just come from advanced tactical training. And even then she got caught, though Picard let her through for the mission's sake.

What matters is that the Maquis bought that hook, line and sinker. (Ro didn't actually seem to believe in it - it was all faked between him and Picard.)

That's unlikely, given that there were areas that were off-limits to passengers.

"Imaginary Friend" showed kids freely accessing Main Engineering. But kids in TNG freely access everything - Data had to shoo them off the Observation Lounge once! There's no evidence that transporter rooms would be difficult to enter.

It can be argued that shuttlebays would be more dangerous to kids than transporter rooms. Consoles can always be locked (even though they aren't Data-proof or Dona Ragar -proof), and an inert transporter is harmless. But a shuttle hangar might be one (fairly simple and low-energy) malfunction away from being hard vacuum, and therefore perhaps more tightly regulated against loitering.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

That's unlikely, given that there were areas that were off-limits to passengers.

"Imaginary Friend" showed kids freely accessing Main Engineering.

It was one kid who did that, and she was told promptly to leave.

But kids in TNG freely access everything - Data had to shoo them off the Observation Lounge once!

It was Riker who did that, and he informed them that they knew the area was off-limits.

 

[stardream]

Shouldn't the pilots be able to access the shuttle bay whenever they want...that is assuming that they still have to fulfill some kind of flight time requirements in the future.

I suppose such things would be scheduled though....

 

[Timo]

It was one kid who did that, and she was told promptly to leave.[..]It was Riker who did that, and he informed them that they knew the area was off-limits.

So we get the pattern where "off-limits areas" are freely accessible to anybody, including stated kid of Passenger Ballast...

Kids are shooed away because they are recognizable for kids. Uniformed personnel are not recognizable for anything but uniformed personnel - see total strangers get a free run of the ship when they dress right in both TOS and TNG. (Also, see "Admiral Patrick" get a free run by saying "That is a stupid question" a lot! Workplace realism there...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

It was one kid who did that, and she was told promptly to leave.[..]It was Riker who did that, and he informed them that they knew the area was off-limits.

So we get the pattern where "off-limits areas" are freely accessible to anybody, including stated kid of Passenger Ballast...

It's more of a case that there normally aren't any locked doors or armed guards, but that there are still places on the ship where passengers can't just help themselves to whenever they please. Not having locked doors may be considered lax (if not non-existent) security by our standards, but there may be an honor system in place for everyone on the Enterprise or some kind of "enlightened" sensibility that occasionally burns our heroes by that particular episode's guest star.

 

[J.T.B.]

Type of things launched doesn't mean squat. It's how they are launched, handled, etc. And that is like a carrier does.

It shows how many and varied the roles of its aircraft are, in contrast to the shuttles seen in Star Trek, which did "shuttling" and that was about it.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Carriers and their aircraft are essentially two parts of a single weapons system. The largest department on the carrier is dedicated to moving, handling, launching and recovering aircraft. Many of the senior officers come from aviation backgrounds, in positions that a destroyer or cruiser officer couldn't step into. The personnel have different cultures, went to different schools, and have dissimilar types of assignments and careers. "Airdales don't do blackshoe work!"

Then there are the craft themselves. Shuttles don't travel tens of times the speed of the ship, don't operate in an extra dimension, don't have completely different forms of propulsion. Shuttles don't crash if they stop moving.

In short, nothing seen in Trek is comparable to the scale and complexity of carrier air operations. Nothing close to this:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75cORqrC6ZA[/yt]

We know no such thing. All we're seeing is short term "stopover" missions the overwhelming majority of the time. We're not seeing the missions where the ships stays weeks at a planet conducting a thorough survey, or helping set up a colony, etc.

Like ships would do with boats? Naval vessels did that kind of thing long before aircraft were invented.

 

[T'Girl]

Like ships would do with boats? Naval vessels did that kind of thing long before aircraft were invented.

The shuttle bay would be more akin to the well deck in the stern of a amphibious assault ship than the flight deck of a carrier.

 

[Timo]

Then again, the transporter already fills many of the practical/dramatic roles of the boat, leaving the shuttles somewhat high and dry.

Are they just bigger boats? A transporter can leave you stranded, but you can't be left stranded aboard a transporter, so the shuttles are needed to play that part of the boat role.

Shuttles can also do meaningful reconnaissance even when the era features the concept of remote sensors. They are the equivalent of shipboard spotter aircraft, then (fixed-wing or rotary-wing), bringing an extra dimension to recce even when the mothership already has "radar".

There's a little bit of everything in the mix when Trek tries to make a "naval" impression: auxiliary spacecraft and spacesuits may evoke the concept of diving, too.

No matter what the analogy, the most important thing is that shuttles are clumsy and awkward, plot-complicating elements. They don't facilitate, except through hindering. Thanks to shuttles, there can be delays, preparation times, detours, rendezvouses and problems with recovery that the transporter cannot provide. In that sense, equating shuttlecraft ops with something that is complicated in the nautical world is a fruitful approach: in the era of sailing, it would be the lowering of boats, but it could also be well decks, helicopter decks or flight decks - as long as these remain time-consuming, preferably man-in-the-loop types of operation. Having a "shuttle chief" is almost automatically desirable, even if his or her function is simply to be late, careless or powerless!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

^ Plot devices basically?

 

[Jedman67]

We have heard of the existence of "flight plans" once, but whether that's standard or a nice-to-have, after-the-fact feature, we don't know. We do see officers just jumping into shuttles without any mention of preparation often enough, but that's no guarantee there wasn't unmentioned preparation beforehand.

However, we also know that officers can and will use the transporter to depart the ship completely without clearance or other such bureaucratic nonsense. Even then craziest transporter procedures only require the officer in question to refer to his or her superior rank, and the transporter operator immediately yields (say, "Realm of Fear") without contacting the bridge for a doubly-signed permit with three official stamps.

In the 24th century, both transporters and shuttles might be rather maintenance-light technologies that have left entire legions of professionals unemployed. That the episodes and movies fail to show complications in their use could very well be taken at face value!

Timo Saloniemi

One can assume that the computer routinely checks transporting individuals against a list of scheduled transporter activity and/or authority for transporting and records logs for review by a higher officer. It makes for lousy plot to show actors poring over paperwork every other episode. In high alert conditions this security feature checks against the requirements of the plot or pre-programmed emergency routines. The crewmember's supervisor may be sent an authorization request or a log, as well as being forwarded to the officer responsible for transporter operations (chief of security or XO, probably). Only in extreme cases - such as when the ship is in battle, would it require a confirmation from a bridge officer before allowing transport. A lot of what should happen is not shown on screen simply because its unnecessary.

With shuttle operations, we usually see the shuttlebay manned during scheduled shuttle activity, but otherwise it's usually quiet.

 

[Captain Rob]

I would hypothesize that in the 24th Century that once a shuttlecraft is powered up and a course and destination selected. That the shuttlecraft computer automatically files a flight plan electronically. With little or no intervention from the pilot.
I've done manual flight plans for private pilot training years ago. And they can be really simple. I.E. : identifying information for the aircraft and pilot, passengers and cargo, origin and destination location, course, altitude and airspeed, and estimated takeoff time and arrival time. Plus any planned course changes.

 

[Timo]

No doubt both shuttles and transporters leave full and detailed log entries for later review - but just as clearly, there's no realtime/preemptive alarm associated with such logs under any conditions, and no lockup or blacklist that a random officer (or a civilian dignitary and his manservant!) couldn't trivially bypass, either.

Which I guess is fine and well. Only a system based on honor could be expected to work against truly resourceful individuals, and Starfleet wants its individuals to be resourceful. Logs can later be used to prosecute those who betray the trust, but using automation to stop misuse is a doomed effort. And so is using personnel, as a clever individual can manipulate people as well.

As for flight plans, many episodes in many shows refer to people filing those beforehand (and typically then deviating from those). Indeed, Harry Mudd is accused of not filing a plan whereas the plans of various other civilians are readily available to our heroes and other authorities. What we lack is evidence that somebody would need to approve of the plans, or even manually "rubber-stamp" them as received and filed. So that's no criterion for stopping a seemingly orderly officer from boarding a shuttle in a seemingly orderly fashion: nobody is supposed to actually ask questions that are supposed to be answered through various records anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jedman67]

There are a handful of TNG episodes demonstrating that using the transporter can be locked out. Offhand, only Rascals comes to mind, but in that case the entire ships computer was locked down, and the "kids" had to improvise using the nursery computer.
I'd also imagine, although i can't name any TNG episode to back this up, that someone who does not have routine permission to use the transporter would be unable to in most cases (in "Haven" the suitor was quiet resourceful and had the advantage of giving the on-duty transporter operator a refreshing mid-afternoon nap, so the console was presumably unlocked. And in "Realm of Fear" Barclay orders O'Brien to beam him over to the science ship, instead of just doing it himself; although this could be explained as necessary by the complex setup required by that episodes technobabble).
in "Best of Both World's" Shelby and Data beam down to the planet without getting permission from Riker first; presumably his orders for them to accompany him on the away team later didn't constitute a suspension of transporter privileges without his say-so. But then again, she is a full Lt. Commander and Data is the ships Second Officer, so it doesn't really prove it one way or another.
I would suggest that unauthorized use of the shuttlecraft or transporter represents the exception, not the rule, just that the requirements of a television series tend to brush such nonsense aside.

For a more "realistic" read on small craft and hangar operations, and in general starship management, read the Honor Harrington novels. I find that if i picture elements of HH being used to "fill in the gaps" in ST, it fleshes out background detail and technical stuff better.