Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. It's a nice chart, I just don't think it's correct. :-)

So, here's my take on it. The reason I've made the four-nacelled ESM the Rigel is because, a.) there was no real model for the Rigel, b.) this model wasn't labelled for the show, and c.) it was on the viewscreen when Shelby pointed out the Tolstoy.

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"Homer, you're dumb as a mule and twice as ugly,
if a strange man offers you a ride, I say take it"-Abe S.

To Ben's credit, he was assembling a *preliminary* chart based on the current info at the time regarding the ships, using the only diagrams he could get his hands on. His Challenger diagram doesn't take the new information into account because I didn't mail him about it until a few days ago. This is actually the second version of his chart.

I'm still kinda leery about the 4-nacelled Excelsior being the Rigel class, with that high registry. It's still not certain whether that four nacelled ship on the viewscreen was the E-study or the Cheyenne.

I think the McQuarrie model being the Apollo class is a good choice, though. Since Apollos have low registries (in the 10000's), its older design makes sense. And before Frank says anything: No, I don't believe the T'pau was an Apollo

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Captain Tenille: "Oh, Simpson, you're like the son I never had."
Homer: "And you're like the father I never visit."

Since the components recognizably come from the TOS movie era, I'd give the ship at most a 30000-range registry (to go with the highest Mirandas) or perhaps 45000 at the most (to go with USS Curry and the later Excelsior batches)), certainly not 68000-range. This could be the Hokule'a cruiser or the Wambundu light cruiser - or then a Merced or Surak whatnot, probably not a cruiser at all. What with the overengining and all, I'd wager a courier of some sort.

As for the McQuarrie ship, it looks way too old to be even an Apollo - the cylindrar engines are *very* problematic for any post-TOS era. The four-naceller could be our Apollo if we wanted, or then one of the other Excelsior study models could fill that role. Or even USS Centaur of DS9 fame - it's got a design to match the low 11000 range of regos, and it's apparently a viable fighting vessel that could plausibly be at Wolf 359 and in "Descent".

The McQuarrie vessel... well we have to think when we last saw cylinderical, tapering nacelles - with no discernable bussard collector - it would have to place it post TOSTV and pre TOSMovie

also in the posted picture above, I'd have to definately say that the Cheyenne is MUCH much smaller than what it is there - you have to see the windows and lifeboats and then the galaxy-type bridge to see that it is NOT the size of a Galaxy saucer section...

Andrew

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"Neil says hi by the way" - Tear In Your Hand, Tori Amos

The McQuarrie pylons need not be ramscoop-less - instead, the ramscoop domes may simply have been destroyed. This seems to be a common type of battle damage for the other Wolf 359 ships. With red hemispheres, the nacelles would be quite TOS-like, and the ships some sort of stablemates to the TOS Constitutions (possibly fightercarriers, as fanfic suggests - and there seem to be prominent openings for large shuttlebays astern).

And the 360-380m Cheyenne isn't Galaxy-sized. It's about as small as it can get already, the saucer shrunk to half the Galaxy size. Perhaps one could go down to 250-300m on basis of some of those saucer windows (I once liked to count only every second windowed "deck" on the saucer as a real deck, and the whole bridge assembly as only one deck in height), but then the bridge module would no longer be identical with the New Orleans and Springfield ones - and New Orleans size is pretty much fixed since we can count the window rows so well in the secondary hull.

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Perdict the unperdictable, but how do you unperdict the unperdictable?

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"Huh. An intelligent guard. I never would have guessed."
-Preed, Titan A.E.

The undamaged version of the McQuarrie ships were seen in the Art of... and never had a red ramscoop... just hollow dark areas.

I think that if there is indeed a shuttle bay on the Cheyenne it would be aft - behind the ship - possibly in the middle with an impulse engine either above or below it or both...

Andrew

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"Neil says hi by the way" - Tear In Your Hand, Tori Amos

Please take a look at:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/cheyenne.htm

Bernd's article addresses quite thoroughly the issue of how the nacelles are arranged and how the pylons are curved.

I did an ASCII rendition of the ship - about 7 years ago now - that had the lower nacelles curving upwards and a small secondary hull. Bernd's careful analysis convinced me otherwise, and the ASCII on my site has been updated appropriately.

Erick Munoz is currently finishing the Cheyenne model, which will be as close to the original as possible. http://www.onlyinla.com/~fructose/models/previews/previews.html

I wasn't completely sure if the pylons are all horizontal or slightly curved up/down. However, I guess Erick's solution to just use a straight polystyrene sheet is what Miarecki probably did too.

I have made an embarrassing error calculating the Cheyenne length last year. It should be 362m instead of 380m, based on the GCS bridge section.

The ship chart isn't an exact reproduction of the appearances of the ships, but a summary of what we have. Be sure that it will be refined.

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It doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing as long as you look good doing it.

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"If I knew you were coming I would have baked a cake...learned to sing....stop me Gage!"
--Aurther
The Journeyman Project 3

As for the Cheyenne, it is that size. We know the scales of the model kits used to build it. Therefore, if we assume the bridge to be the same size as a Galaxy's (seeing as they're identical), we know the other GCS parts to be 5/9 normal GCS size (the scales of the two model kits are in a ratio of 5:9).