The 'Spindrift 14,' a Spindrift--Generation Six--Class Shuttle 14

ARTIST: William Louis ("Bill") McDonald Senior.

COMPANY: Argonaut-GreyWolf.

YEAR: 2001

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PROJECT: A commercial warp drive shuttle crashlands on Berengaria VII, a dragonworld according to "Star Trek: The Original Series."

MEDIA: This "Sketch-a-Doodle" was sketched in black Higgins India ink, Bic ball point pens in red, blue and black.

MY FASCINATION: The "Spindrift" from the "Land of the Giants" TV series on ABC from 1968 through 1970. Irwin Allen's "Spindrft" design was intended as a hypersonic sub-orbital transport ship named Spindrift. Irwin utilized several production designers including Robert Kinoshita and William Creber. Like its sister ship, the Flying Sub, the Spindrift has a uniquely organic and sculptural form, which producer Irwin Allen insisted upon. In breaking from more traditional NASA style, the engineers created a very futuristic-looking ship with no wings or control surfaces. Unfortunately, Allen’s demand for “form over function” made the ship notoriously difficult to figure out a true way to make it fly. After this, Irwin's fourth series was cancelled, it remained in dead storage on the 20th Century Fox backlot until the late 1970’s.

MY PERSONAL PROJECT: To have Starfleet or the Federation Commercial Design Bureau--or Seven-of-Nine Onnica or even one of Noonian Song's android "Boyz" resurrect the basic biomorphic design, "Blend" in warp engines and a pair of deflector shield generators into the original aerospace plane's design; and thus give birth to a fast interstellar courier shuttle, or a fast attack police shuttle, or a commercial trading shuttle, or whatever. Maybe something a Section 31 pilot would want to fly, on the fly.

She'd make a bad ass aerosurf/waverider water landing shuttle as well as a standard shuttle when using her landing gear--a special three-ski landing skids design incorporating four roller-wheels each. She'd sport two warp cores, two phaser cannons, two embedded nacelles, armor, dorsal bay doors, belly bay doors and standard egress doors. She'd have her cargo space, engineering spaces and living areas "Blended" in with minimal bulkheads to allow for maximum maintenance and repairs access except for the toilet and shower. Her upper dome would be an auxilliary cockpit sporting a "Floated" crash-couch bio-bed to augment her more traditional two-crew cockpit with crash-couch / bio-bed configuration.

LOCATION: Drawn from memory only in my security lieutenant office (I was the overnight shift commander) for Pinkertons / Securitas at Microchip Chandler.