quote:Originally posted by Masao: A courier is often used to refer to a person who carries messages and information. By extension, a courier ship might simply be a fast, small ship for securely and quickly carrying information, mail, etc.
It needn't be huge, of course, but I can't imagine that they wouldn't give it cargo space in case it needed to "coury" something else.
quote:In the military today, I imagine that the smallest, fastest craft, such as fighters, are used as couriers.
The Defense Courier Service is under the Air Mobility Command, which does not include fighters. The DCS website's index page image is of a cargo palette being loaded onto a Lear-style jet.
quote:Originally posted by Abaddon: Those are about 25-32 meters long. Those tac fighters are purdy large.
True, but if you look at the cockpit module it is very small in comparison to the rest of the craft . . . a couple of meters wide, and about twice that in length. That gives them the cramped cockpit from Maquis2 plus either another cramped cockpit's worth of space behind them (assuming it isn't full of equipment).
quote:Originally posted by Mim: Trying to take Pathways and its wholly incorrect references to ship and class names as canon = BAD.
1. I'm stuck going with Paramount on the canonicity. 2. Given that there are only a few ship names given and that, besides Voyager, no other class names are given that I recall offhand, I don't see how it can be considered wholly incorrect.
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: I might point out that the Tac-Fighters (which I still believe are Peregrines) fired photon torpedoes in their harrying raids against Dukat's fleet in the beginning of "The Sacrifice of Angels". So that part of your theory doesn't work -- sorry, G2K.
I do not see how that works against the idea, even if we assume those were torpedoes and not pulsed phasers. Where did it appear that the argument required that the SoA fighters could not or should not have torpedoes?
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Me, I'm convinced the Federation fighter is between 15 and 20 meters of length (scaling from the cockpit window)... That would allow it to be packed aboard an Akira in some quantity!
Unfortunately, that would make it too cramped for what we see in Maquis2.
quote:A "courier" should indeed be fast, but we don't really have any reason to think that the fighters or the Peregrines would be especially fast. I mean, the Peregrine couldn't even outrun a Runabout!
Correct. While the old Peregrine courier could not outrun a runabout despite heavily modified engines (which apparently limits it to the warp five range), we know that state-of-the-art Type-9 shuttles are capable of warp four ("Resolutions"[VOY2]).
Call me crazy, but I'd like to think that the Federation fighter, being all engine, would be swift as all hell.
quote:P.S. "Quantum" torpedoes in the script? Is this where the term really originates?
Originates? No, SoA was after FC.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote: P.S. "Quantum" torpedoes in the script? Is this where the term really originates?
quote: Originates? No, SoA was after FC.
Ah. I thought the wing cannon were identified as quantums in "The Maquis" script.
I don't quite see why the fighter would be too cramped at 15-20 meters, which gives it a windshield similar to the Type 15 shuttlepod, which in turn was used for the interior.
posted
I think it's safe to ignore sizing discrepancies in the Tac-Fighter's appearances; after all, no-one is saying there are 3 (or 4) different ship classes which are all Defiant-shaped. But what size are we saying they are, if 15-20m is too cramped and 25-32m is too large?
The mere fact the fighters have wings suggests they're intended to be able to operate in atmosphere. Makes sense - groud troops would need close-in air support, they couldn't depend solely on starship-mounted phaser banks for fire missions.
Can someone remind me what other references there are which counter-indicate the Chakotaymobile being an Antares-class? I was thinking. . . The large raider is obviously intended to be a ship available to civilians, and might have a different name as such. Like the Bell JetRanger helicopter is called (I think) the Kiowa by the US military. Hummer, Humvee. . .
Assuming that's Cal Hudson on the right, and given his width (he's a broad guy, about as 1/3rd as wide as he is tall), we can roughly estimate the cockpit as two meters wide (plus another half-meter or so to include the exterior where it tapers down to the hull), which fits well with the interior visuals later.
Eyeballing it, the cockpit interior is about the same width as the width from cockpit to nacelle inboard. The full cockpit plus exterior is a bit more. We can thus take the later shot from Maquis2 showing one of the fighters from almost perfectly straight above and arrive at the following dimensions:
Cockpit: ~25 px Cockpit to nacelle inboard: 19-20 px Total width: 200px Total length: ~175px
Note that our estimate of two-and-a-half meters was pretty good for the difference between interior cockpit and cockpit plus exterior. So:
Given the two meter conversion, then by the inboard standard we have:
Width: 20-21m Length: 17.5-18.4m
Your pixelage may vary, but I'd say that the fighter can't be more than about 20 meters long, and is certainly not less than about 16.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
That's the bracket I'm happy with, too. With wing-fold and good (auto-?) piloting, those babies will fit through the Akira bow doors.
Fantastic image, that one! Could we get another one to show where exactly the torpedo comes from, perhaps? And of the wing cannon firing? Pretty please?
quote:Originally posted by Timo: That's the bracket I'm happy with, too. With wing-fold and good (auto-?) piloting, those babies will fit through the Akira bow doors.
Well . . . I have to confess that I'm averse to the folding wing idea. Even at 18 meters long, the wings are sufficiently thick to preclude easy movement, and there is no external evidence of a hinge (like one finds on the Intrepid). Granted, there are various technobabble and real-life-futuretech possibilities, but I don't see how they could apply on this particular bird.
quote:Fantastic image, that one!
They did great work in that episode. When Hudson fires on Sisko's runabout to escape the tractor beam, you can see itty bitty Sisko and itty bitty Dukat beside him. It blew my effin' mind.
quote:Could we get another one to show where exactly the torpedo comes from, perhaps?
Well, yeah, but it won't do much good. The torpedo firing shot is a wide one, and all that can really be discerned thanks to the glow of firing is that they come from the nose region.
In the same sequence, Hudson's fighter takes a hit to the ventral doohickey they'd fired phasers from earlier (see here), which knocks out torpedoes. This may be suggesting that is some sort of weapons module.
quote:And of the wing cannon firing? Pretty please?
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
If you base the fighter's size (Maquis Pt II) on Cal and friend in the cockpit window (DVD owners, can we have a pic of that please??), the entire fighter works out to an overall length of about 12.5m. I can't remember what magazine I read it in, but the model's cockpit shape and angles was based on the TNG Shuttlepod so that set's interior could be used with the actors. If you look at most line drawings of the ship, you can see this is the case. Gives a definite way of measuring the ship, since the shuttlepod is a known value.
quote:Originally posted by SoundEffect: If you base the fighter's size (Maquis Pt II) on Cal and friend in the cockpit window (DVD owners, can we have a pic of that please??), the entire fighter works out to an overall length of about 12.5m.
How so? Using that method I got 18, as visible above.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Well you were using a shot from TV, with inherant distortions, not that it can't be used. See what you get using either shots of the model itself, or with diagrams of side/top view of the fighter.
The top view shot you posted has too much light splash on the surface to even see where the cockpit area (akin to the shuttlepod) starts and ends...that'll throw the calculations off by a bit.
posted
My folding wing obsession involves the sort of hinges we see on real-world naval aircraft - not an "inflight" mechanism as in the Tomcats (or Intrepid class starships), but a "deck-only" one as in the Hornets.
The fold line on these craft would be the one with the prominent downward kink (and an equally prominent surface groove), since folding those sections back up would be sufficient to let the craft land the way Danubes do, to rest on the nacelle bottoms. The hinges would be hidden inside the wing or something.
Anyway, one must wonder what those outer wing panels are *for*. They are a big hindrance to landing, and aerodynamic surfaces don't seem to be necessary for Trek small craft. Are there some sort of gravitic systems there, the way many Star Wars cutouts try to justify the odd appendages of the designs from those movies? Or are the wingtips some sort of a weapon system, perhaps a bomb dispenser or a shield-emitting antenna?
quote:Originally posted by SoundEffect: Well you were using a shot from TV, with inherant distortions, not that it can't be used. See what you get using either shots of the model itself, or with diagrams of side/top view of the fighter.
Diagrams as made popularly available are notoriously risky. Just surf to Ex Astris and count the number of times Bernd had to clean up some Fact Files or Magazine funkiness.
The filming model itself (or the CGI) might be useful, but I don't know of any shots of the model. And, since the model would be photographed for me to do anything with it, it would suffer from the distortions you mention as well. However, I do not think that photographs are as imprecise a tool as you seem to be suggesting.
quote:The top view shot you posted has too much light splash on the surface to even see where the cockpit area (akin to the shuttlepod) starts and ends...that'll throw the calculations off by a bit.
I brightened and enlarged it to make the whole craft visible to all, rotating it slightly for ease of measure. The measurements work out the same with the pre-modified version.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
I'm surprised how well the statements from "The Maquis" go along with those of "Heart of Stone". Together with the evidence from TNG: "Preemptive Strike" (someone have a transcript?) we can safely conclude that the Maquis ships were all supposed to be upgraded civilian Federation ships. Here "courier" may refer to a small trade ship of which we have seen many other designs (mostly shuttles and Batris redresses) in alien hands.
My principal problem with that notion was always that the two designs just didn't look anything like that. Neither does the aggressive styling feel right, nor do the designs look practical. Later on in DS9, the responsible people may have thought just the same and declared one of the courier ships to "fighters" or "raiders" (the fact that we had seen the latter on Voyager may have influenced the decision not to use this design on a regular basis on DS9, except for Eddington). In this light it doesn't even matter that much which of the two is the true Peregrine, although I admit that the evidence is in favor of the smaller raider (or the raider with the smaller cockpit).
-------------------- Bernd Schneider
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
While the "clawed" wings of the two differently sized raiders do appear aggressive, the original civilian version might have lacked all such wing empennage, and would subsequently look rather tame. Remove the various prongs and boxes that dot the raider exteriors, and suddenly the bow is "nicely" rounded, the wings droop "unthreateningly", etc.
As for practicability, I rather like a ship that has a small cabin but needs to be "all engine" in order to make that cabin move across interstellar distances. Perhaps Trek starcraft simply cannot be more "capacious" even when they are civilian parcel haulers (the short-ranged shuttlecraft are a different matter, and justly look like boxcars).
To me, "support courier" evokes images of a courtly UPS van rather than, say, a brave pony express rider or a battlefield messenger on a roaring bike... But a UPS van can be converted to a cool SWAT team battlewagon with suitable add-ons. And that's what Chakotay's ship looks like to me. (Perhaps it's the two big square vertical front windows that look like they're ripped off an old Dodge delivery van?)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
something else.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
