Swift class

Inscription on Commissioning Plaque:
 "The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

-- Lily Tomlin

General Specifications:
Length: 32.6m
Width: 50.6m
Height: 16m
Max Warp: 9.5
Cruise: 6.75
Max. Impulse: 0.85 lightspeed
Crew: 5 officers, 14 enlisted; accomodations for up to 20 passengers.

Armaments: Two phaser cannon of classified output, coupled to the multifunction phased array; One enhanced quantum torpedo launcher, aft.

Type: Diplomatic Courier/Cadet Training Vessel

Status: One in service. Starfleet has no plans to build more unless there is a great demand for the type.

About Ship: The Swift class vessel is based on one of the unfinished hulls of the "Sunfish" class production run. The Sunfish was a reconnaissance type developed to help combat the Borg. The Sunfish had a great many teething problems, and was abandoned, though it pioneered technology now incorporated in many new designs. Only the prototype remains. There were, however, eleven hulls in various states of assembly. Ten were placed in classified storage (perhaps to be finished as reconnaissance vessels). The eleventh was demilitarized and turned over to Starfleet Academy for training use.

At the Academy, student engineers were challenged to issue a specification, then redesign and refit the existing vessel to the new specification. The students decided to rebuild the hull into a passenger-carrying congfiguration, specifically, a diplomatic courier.

The Swift class incorporates some of the technology developed for the Sunfish class, primarily the multifunction phased array, which integrates a network of emitters and sensors directly within the hull matrix itself. Each array includes sensors, phaser emitters, navigational deflector emitters, and tractor beam emitters. Each array can take a significant amount of damage before performance is noticeably diminished.

A pod-like environmental hull wraps around the wing-like engineering section, the only original part of the Sunfish design used. This results in a vessel not significantly larger than the original, but with a tremendous increase in useful internal volume. This point is driven home when one considers that the shuttlebay of the Swift can hold three of the Sunfish's environmental sections.

There was some concern that adding the large-diameter central pod would result in an inefficient configuration. Once initial testing began, it was discovered that this configuration is quite efficient, once the warp pods are properly balanced.