“The Connie could never really replace its Bonnie” man why are you making me emotional over fictional starships

It really says 'Starship Class'  cause whoever filled out the order for the plaque forgot to fill in the 'Starship Class'  dropdown menu bit.  :)

My man uploading at 1 AM(12 for him since he's from THAT island). Great for sleepytyme.

The idea of Bonaventure existing an integrated cooperative doctrine with the Constitution is an interesting idea.
The Bonnie tank and the Connie speed DPS. I wonder what would be the support, Antares maybe?

I can happily listen to you chat about starships all day. Some superb insights there. Nicely done. 👍

Enterprise being a 74 gunner does make a lot of sense to me. Maybe she is a British 74 with carronades and a heavier battery then most like 32 pounders and somehow a 24 pounder secondary instead of 18 pounders or something,
By the time she is updated we are sort of in the Vicrorian Ironclad era and by Excelsior we are in the pre Dreadnought era or similar. Also considered peak starfleet/Royal Navy but a bit of a facade especially compared to power in the mid to late 24th centaury American Navy analogue.

The Bonaventure Class! THANK YOU!

Bonaventure is just beautiful.

I haven’t been a fan of your starship class idea in the past, but hell your beginning to winning me over, explaining it in this way helps it’s case a lot more

One of the few og Star Trek channels I enjoy.  Thanks for all the interesting work!

One of the problems we have when discussing TOS is that we invariably retrofit later ideas into the TOS nomenclature. Even post TOS era (specifically the Franz Joseph era of 1975, before Roddenberry reclaimed everything before the failed Phase 2 and eventual TMP era) and gave them names based on the first ship of its kind (the modern standard) there seems to be a notion that perhaps the standard cruising speed defined the original class names (in FJ all the ships were warp 6 with the Dreadnaught being warp 8 for max cursing speed). Thus we might think the "starship" class were those ships that could average warp 6 or warp 8 in an emergency. Given the later FJ equation that warp speed cubed was the speed of light velocity it was going (which more or less fit the TNG model)  the difference between a standard warp 5 (125c) and 6 (216c) is a factor of 1.728 in terms of speed.

And here is the problem with the analysis. The Bonaventure is a warp 5 max cruise vessel. I would argue that it is no more a "Starship Class" vessel anymore than the NX-01 warp 5 was a "starship class vessel." A starship class vessel is fast enough to go wherever it is needed whenever it is needed, and we can see hints of this in the TOS timeline (which some people have meticulously mapped). Remember that a "Bonnie" takes over 45 days to go from Earth to Vulcan while a Connie does that in 27 days. Thus the Bonnie protects the basic members of the Federation, as opposed to "boldly going" to the outer areas of Federation space.

When you mentioned the Bonnie as sort of a companion starship to the Connie, you made me remember the Pyotr Velikiy class from the Starfleet Museum site. It was designed as a competitor to the Constitution class. Perhaps you can do a video on that? I know you have done a few videos on some of Masao Okazaki's designs. Do you think you could do more in the future? 🙂

Cool vid, I had that calendar! But I never quite figured out what Bonny was!

It seems the Constitution class was one of the once in a generation designs that excelled in its original role, but was adaptable enough to take on new roles and excel at them to the point where they were used past the point where they should have been retired. (I'm thinking things like the Boeing 707 which, after its role as airliner ended was used as the basis for a multitude of different aircraft with different roles, airborne radar post, refueling tanker, EW plane, etc. or the Essex class Carriers the last of which was retired in 1991 after multiple refits and changes.)

Bonnie and Connie: The Starship Sisters, sounds like it could be the premise of a 23rd century kids show. Great video, love the lore.

I always imagined the Bonaventure class would be more maneuverable because it has such a sporty design to it.

Sad Pyotr Velikiy noises.
That said, Bonaventure is a ship I've been hoping to see covered in a ship chat for some time!

Yeah, I've always thought the "starship class" was a description of particular specifications. Like "A *Starship* will have specific minimum speed, endurance, stores/machinery, firepower and "reserve buoyancy" (eg, ability to absorb damage)"  I like to think technology was accelerating so fast, the classifications operated on fuzzy logic more than strict rules.

Much like the lightning fast obsolescence cycles of the the jet age.

Perhaps I'm biased, but Bonaventure is such a good name for a ship. I went to a university of the same name. So, I have always loved this name for a ship.

We mainly see lots of CONNIES cause the areas that it was operating were the areas for the operation of Connies. And missions that they were sent to handle. During the less exciting WEEKS of travel and less interesting missions they likley ran into all sorts of other ships when not doing a story line. Basically off screen. I imagine the Bonnies would have been sent to areas like the Klingon Borders to do Monitor Duty for those areas of space and were stuck in areas that were well known and at risk of incursions by Klingon Pirates for example. They might have planned them to work together, but the chance just never came in their service life and only the Connie got more refits. These likley got sent to Space bone yards since they were hard to maintain, I doubt member nations wanted them for system defense operations.