Danube class

[Timo]

What about escape pods or lifeboats? At the fore and aft ends of the Jefferies tube? What do they look like?

I'd go with the jettisonable forward cabin only. It gets a bit awkward when one tries to draw an internal bulkhead at the most probable line of separation, the "ridged collar" aft of the doors... But it can be done. And if escape pods existed, I'd think we'd have heard of them at some point.

As for other emergency gear, I'd perhaps have those emergency beacons we see in "Vortex" stored in the little boxes that surround the warp core pillbox.

The Jeffries tube would probably run along the spine, above the central corridor but just below the warp core. There'd be a pull-down ladder there for accessing the tube from the central corridor, and perhaps short transverse branches for reaching the pylons.

Damn how I'd like to find the website where that one artist with the German-sounding name (Weissman? Something with a W and twin consonants) had all those bridge blueprints and runabout interior plans! Anybody know what I'm talking about?

As for the Delta Flyer, good luck! You'll need it... Probably the most challenging part is figuring out how one enters or exits the craft. Then again, it's even more difficult with the assorted TNG movie shuttles!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

The Jefferies tube in the Danube class is labeled on my schematic on the previous page.

Maybe these clarify the question of the rear access hatch of the Delta Flyer and also suggests how the floors go.

http://www.culttvman.com/orlando_guiang_s_delta_flyer.html

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/trek/jk_delta.htm

 

[Reverend]

What about escape pods or lifeboats?

On the Danube, I think the entire cockpit section detaches and acts as a lifeboat.
As for the aft hatch on the Delta Flyer...good luck figuring that out.

 

[Bill Morris]

So many escape pods. So vulnerable.

 

[Timo]

Hmm... Here's a thought:

Remember that the cockpit and the aft lab are completely separate sets whose mutual spatial relationship is mere guesswork? Remember, too, that the wall one step clockwise from the entry doorway and ladder features a medical inspection chute (a futuristic CT scanner tube) that would protrude into space if the doorway pointed forward and the chute pointed to starboard?

Now, what if you rotated the aft compartment 90 degrees counterclockwise? That is, the entry door would actually lead to a narrow corridor on the port side of the aft compartment, and the medical scanner would protrude forward. Now you could move the aft section a meter or so forward, and have the portside corridor lead past the aft compartment to a third compartment, the one with the aft ramp.

All sorts of possibilities there, also for the placement of the escape pods (which could now be in the aftmost compartment along with other stowed gear and eject through the opened ramp). I'll try and sketch it ASAP.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tyberius]

True, but we saw the crew on TNG use shuttles regularly for shore leave, away missions, and so forth. It seems extremely unlikely that shuttles like the T6 therefore didn't have some warp capacity, and the TNG TM certainly states that all of the shuttle types typical aboard a Galaxy (and presumably many other classes) have warp drive. And wasn't Worf's T6 said to have caused the dimensional breach in "Parallels" by using its warp system? I don't recall exactly.

As I recall, an episode of TNG had Picard in a shuttle going after an errant torpedo.

 

[Timo]

In TNG "Genesis", he and Data took a Type 6 to chase a torpedo - but that torpedo had not gone very far. We never saw it go to warp, even though it loitered outside phaser range, and we have no reason to think the shuttle went to warp, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

I was thinking that took place in "Genesis," but I couldn't remember.

 

[Tyberius]

In TNG "Genesis", he and Data took a Type 6 to chase a torpedo - but that torpedo had not gone very far. We never saw it go to warp, even though it loitered outside phaser range, and we have no reason to think the shuttle went to warp, either.

Timo Saloniemi

I had thought that it had to go to warp. At sublight speeds, what is the velocity of a torpedo? Could a sublight craft run the torpedo down without extreme time dilation?

 

[Bill Morris]

Some further thought on the interior layout of the Flyer, assuming overall length of 21 meters. The helmsman has to be able to see over the hood. And the view of the oval frame member of the front window falls into place here just as seen with Chakotay at the helm in Timeless. And headroom is as seen in Good Shepherd.

So that brings the floors up like this. The man standing is scaled to 6 feet for 21 meters in length of the Flyer.

There's a dropdown articulating stairway in the aft section for easy access when the rear hatch is open. You can see it in Timeless. Some old houses even have this sort of thing made of wood, for access to the attic. Or a fire escape.

 

[Timo]

I didn't realize we saw as much in "Timeless". All right, this seems workable although a bit nonsensical from the utility standpoint. (Then again, that's Tom Paris for ya.)

Really, the aft lab is probably something of an afterthought: a module plugged in the cargo hold via the aft hatch, and then probably made more or less permanent.

I had thought that it had to go to warp. At sublight speeds, what is the velocity of a torpedo? Could a sublight craft run the torpedo down without extreme time dilation?

When Worf fired the torps, they flew off at the usual sublight speeds, those that look like a couple of hundred meters per second at most (unless we assume Trek space combat is shot in slow motion, not a bad assumption as such). One stopped somewhere outside phaser range (or began coasting, rather), and the problem wasn't in running it down, but in finding it amidst the asteroid clutter. Everything would seem to imply very low speed for the torpedo, low enough that it wouldn't escape from the dense asteroid field or fly outside the volume the shuttle could practically search.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

The stairway is shown stowed in Timeless. Future Harry Kim walks by it just after recording the message to himself.

Okay? Now may I do the easy parts?

 

[Bill Morris]

That articulating stairway (ladder) leads to the cargo bay from the aft section when the hatch is closed. Maybe this shows that better.

 

[Timo]

Looking good.

...I'm not too familiar with the later seasons of VOY. Did we see the transporters of the craft in action? Or just the end result? That is, does the craft perhaps have an actual transporter pad in the hidden midsection, or just a hidden site-to-site or ceiling-pad unit like the shuttles?

Sleeping arrangements are also a mystery - but the midsection could feature a ladderway to an alcove above the aft lab. Most of the machinery is probably underfloor and in the side sponsons anyway.

The craft is bound to have a Jeffries tube somewhere even though the episodes never showed one - the Federation always insists on these optimally unergonomic means of access. Probably there's a crawlway under the forward cabin floor, helping explain why the floor is raised in the first place.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

Torres borrowed something from behind the transporter system panel in Extreme Risk. and Paris mentioned that the Flyer didn't have a replicator in One Small Step.

Are we sure those are escape pods that I have so labeled here? I saw a diagram that had them as an atmospheric speedbrake.

 

[Timo]

So are there transporter pads or not+ We might just as well have some in the mid-compartment if a beam-out is never explicitly shown.

The escape pods should probably be somewhere that allows for easy boarding. I say keep the speedbrakes as speedbrakes (as the known pod design wouldn't be shaped quite like that anyway), and have the pods stacked in the aft compartment next to the aft hatch/ramp. They'd have to be in a part of the craft that isn't frequented by normal users anyway, for "Good Shepherd" to work. Alternately, put them upstairs in the cargo compartment and assume that the smooth "radome" thing ahead of the Borg array is a door that opens to space - but I'd prefer the aft hatch because it would allow for the "Good Shepherd" launch without having the pod show up through the forward windows.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

You don't want to open the rear hatch to launch an escape pod. That schematic labels them "Atmospheric speedbrake/contingency system stowage." Whatever. The size matches the pods. The part in front may well be a controllable flap.

 

[Bill Morris]

I didn't do the curvature of the railings in the Flyer MSD image. I'll fix that.

The screencap below from Live Fast and Prosper shows the boarding ladder but with a grillwork cover in front of it, which it didn't have in Timeless. But this at least shows where it is. The steps are about a meter wide and have rubber over the metal. Behind Neelix in this screencap are the two benches that slide out for use as bunks, to one's right when entering the aft section from forward.

For the Type 9, the filming model shows a warp-core ejection port on the ventral side, although there is obviously no place inside for a standup core. I would just have to ignore that.

Another question: What is that colorful pole next to the aft station of the Flyer? (I didn't draw it in the image.)

Final tweaks:

 

[Bill Morris]

Here's the Flyer with the escape pods outlined beyond those outer doors, the top one on each side dorsal-side down, since entry is from the ventral side, and all facing forward. This also shows the fancy handrails in the aft section, which future Chakotay's girlfriend had some fun with in VOY: Timeless.

I'm not sure what that lit-up pole next to the aft station is, but the same prop can be seen in the laboratory of the Pathfinder Project. Something ODN-related maybe.

 

[Bill Morris]

Here's a clear-enough screencap of the Delta Flyer's boarding ladder, albeit still in its stowed position. But this thing folds down and articulates to form a strong, stable stairway to the aft section when the rear hatch is open.