Blackbird Class

As a scout ship, the Blackbird class has assignments within major fleet operations as well as independent missions. The class was developed in the early 24th century to replace the aging Kingfisher-class ships. The new design incorporates all the innovations of the Ambassador-class era and exceeds the performance of its predecessor by far. The top speed is Warp 8.3 compared to the Warp 7.5 of the Kingfisher. The Blackbird class is also more heavily armed with 5 phaser emitters and 3 photon torpedo tubes. Although the first two batches of ships that were commissioned until 2325 performed well, Starfleet Command halted the production and decided to focus shipbuilding efforts on much larger cruiser-type designs. The reasoning was that in an ever-expanding Federation space it was advantageous to have one better equipped and more powerful light cruiser on standby in a border sector than two or three scouts.

Ships of the Blackbird class currently still operate on either side of the Federation border in the Alpha Quadrant. Due to their high velocity, the ships could easily outrun Cardassian or Tholian pursuers when tensions rose in the 2350'a and 2360's. Nevertheless, three Blackbird-class ships were lost in combat, five were decommissioned due to wear and tear or due to battle damages. The ships that are still in service are supposed to be decommissioned soon and will probably be replaced by the Saber class.

 

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Datasheet

 

Credits

Thanks to Jason Gazeley for his cross-section.

 

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