Shuttle, shuttle, who’s got the shuttle? It’s Eaglemoss’ Official Starship Collection, of course!
Branching out from their standard-sized model collection into smaller 2.5″ designs, the company first launched their four-ship shuttlecraft sets in late 2015, and we’ve finally gotten our hands on the first wave of releases, which covers a century of Star Trek auxiliary crafts.
Like Eaglemoss’ full-size ships, the set includes a mini-magazine for each of the four ships written in an in-universe style, detailing the history, configuration, and general usage of each shuttlecraft.
Along with each vessel comes a unique LCARS-styled “Okudagram” graphic card — specially created for this set by the master of Trek interface design, Mike Okuda — providing technical details on each shuttle.
First up is the original: the classic Galileo shuttlecraft — classified as a Class-F shuttle — is that iconic crew transport from the Original Series, complete with brilliant red Starfleet pinstriping and stylized hull markings identifying it as being attached to the USS Enterprise.
While the now-restored Star Trek filming model now resides at Space Center Houston as an attraction for visitors, the Eaglemoss Gailieo model stays true to the original Matt Jefferies design from 1966 and will fit in at home in a display case or on the corner of your desk at the office.
Composed of a die-cast metal top and plastic undercarriage/nacelle design, the red-and-black paint is crisp on the solid-feeling hull — but if there’s one weak spot on the Galileo, it’s the gold landing strut extending from the aft section of the shuttle.
The strut is a plastic attachment, and is easily bendable with light pressure due to the thin point of contact with the rest of the assembly. It looks fine at a glance, just handle with care.
Next up is the chunky Type-6 shuttlecraft, one of the most used shuttle designs featured on Star Trek: The Next Generation, brought into service for Season 5’s “Darmok” after the full-size set piece completed its duty as a Galileo-type shuttle in 1988’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
The top half of the Type-6 shuttle is molded plastic, a necessary choice to capture the level of hull detail and shaping in this angular craft, while the base of the shuttle is the typical die-cast metal to which the warp nacelles are attached.
This version of the Type-6 is the Goddard, the shuttle donated to Montgomery Scott after his rescue from transporter stasis in “Relics” – and was also notably issued as a Playmates action figure accessory in the 1990s.
The only thing that would make this one a little bit better is if that rear hatch would open up…
The third craft in the collection is the barely-seen Type-10 shuttle, which only appeared in a single episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 6’s “The Sound of Her Voice.”
Attached to the USS Defiant, the Chaffee transported Sisko, O’Brien, and Bashir to the surface of a desolate world in an attempt to rescue stranded Starfleet captain Lisa Cusak, only to find she’d been dead for years by the time they arrived (due to a temporal anomaly surrounding the planet).
The tiny vessel just barely seemed to fit in the Defiant’s hold, and its Eaglemoss counterpart certainly reflects the on-screen size of the Chaffee — but still features the same technological stylings as the Defiant around the top of the engine section, clearly pairing it to DS9’s resident warship.
Like the Type-6 shuttlecraft, the Chaffee has a metal base and plastic upper half due to the detail on the engines.
Finally, we round out the set with Star Trek: Voyager’s tiny, two-person Type-9 shuttle — sometimes called a Class-2 — which debuted as the shuttle Cochrane in Season Two’s “Threshold,” there souped up by Tom Paris to break the impossible Warp 10 speed barrier.
This Voyager craft was the final shuttle built as a studio model for Star Trek, transitioning to a digital replacement for later appearances in the series, and continued to be featured in the series even after the Delta Flyer began serving as the ship’s primary auxiliary craft.
Despite its winged look, the Type-9 is a surprisingly solid model, as the top half of the shuttle – including the nacelle struts – is a single piece of die-cast metal, leaving only the nacelles themselves and the underside of the ship as molded plastic.
You could probably step on this one and not do a speck of damage to it.
We do have to make note of the generic stand included with each shuttle, which is a notable step down from the full-size starship releases.
Instead of a plastic cradle to hold each ship in place, the shuttlecraft sets come with just a flat-topped stand that offers no stability when placing a shuttle on display — if the ship isn’t centered just right, a glancing bump of the hand will knock the small ships right off of the pedestal.
(This is noticeably an issue for the Chaffee and Type-9 shuttles, which have thin-widthed bases that makes each difficult to keep balanced on the stand.)
Each shuttle has a different structure on the underside, which makes this generic flat stand a bit ill-suited for the intended use; perhaps a pedestal with a larger surface area would be more appropriate for future releases.
We recommend a bit of double-sided tape or temporary adhesive to keep your shuttles properly docked.
The four-ship shuttlecraft set can be ordered over at Eaglemoss’ shop, and a second wave of shuttles is also available as well – with at least two more collections like these in development now.
Come back to TrekCore often for more Trek product reviews!
In Eaglemoss’ US store, TrekCore readers can use promo code TREKCORE at checkout for 10% off any ‘Star Trek’ collectible purchase $50 or greater (Starships, Plaques, Binders, Graphic Novels).