Now for a ship or shuttle I must say that is so awesome, unique and iconic that it could have an entire show based around it. I am talking about the Delta Flyer. The Delta Flyer was a specially designed Starfleet shuttlecraft constructed by the crew of the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant in 2375. The vessel was designed to handle environments that would be too hazardous for a standard shuttlecraft and to be slightly larger than the average shuttle, the crew having acknowledged that standard shuttles were of little use in the increasingly hostile and unexplored Delta Quadrant.

The vessel was a blend of Starfleet and Borg technology, designed in collaboration between B’Elanna Torres, Tom Paris, Tuvok, Harry Kim, and Seven of Nine. It featured a warp-streamlined tetraburnium alloy hull, retractable warp nacelles, parametallic hull plating, unimatrix shielding, and a Borg-inspired weapon system, including photonic missiles, most of which were Paris’ conceptions. For aesthetic reasons, Paris designed some of the flight controls to resemble those from the holodeck simulation of Captain Proton; when Tuvok complained, Paris explained that he wanted to feel the ship and that he was tired of tapping panels. But to Paris’ disappointment, the addition of dynametric tailfins was denied by Tuvok. Instead of having the usual two pilot stations, it had several command stations.

The idea to design a larger, more efficient shuttle than the cramped class 2 shuttle was first given to the Delta Flyer’s designer, Lieutenant junior grade Tom Paris, by the former Borg drone Seven of Nine in 2375. Captain Janeway later authorized the craft’s construction, which was led by Paris, in order to retrieve a multispatial probe that was lost in the atmosphere of a gas giant and in danger of being stolen by the Malon. The Malon began work on a shuttlecraft also, and finished theirs before the Flyer was complete. When the Malon sent out their shuttle, the Flyer was deployed early, despite a flaw in the vessel’s structural integrity. The Flyer was successful in retrieving the probe, but a hull breach started to occur. B’Elanna Torres designed a makeshift device that deployed a temporary force field, successfully containing the breach.

The Delta Flyer’s second mission was to infiltrate a Species 8472 terrasphere. Paris, Kim, and Chakotay took the Flyer out to investigate the terrasphere. When the undercover Chakotay was revealed, Voyager rendezvoused with the Delta Flyer. The Delta Flyer encountered near-destruction in its third mission when it got caught in an ion storm and crash landed three kilometers under rock on a class M planet. Life support began to fail and Paris, Samantha Wildman, and Tuvok did not believe they could be rescued. The Voyager crew was able to dig through the rock and locate the Delta Flyer. The crew and the Flyer were beamed aboard. In early 2375, Voyager was equipped with a quantum slipstream drive and used it in an attempt to return to the Alpha Quadrant. The Flyer, piloted by Chakotay and Kim, rode the slipstream ahead of Voyager in order to chart the slipstream and send appropriate phase corrections to Voyager. Unfortunately, the drive proved unstable and nearly caused Voyager to lose structural integrity. Fortunately, a Harry Kim from an alternate timeline where the ship had been destroyed, was able to transmit a phase correction directly to Seven of Nine’s Borg implants which shut the drive down. Use of the drive was then abandoned until it could be better understood.

A few months later, the Delta Flyer was used to go underwater on The Waters of the Moneans. The Flyer was able to take large amounts of stress, entering great depths of water. It was even able to reach the core of the ocean which was quite deep underwater. This core was actually a large containment field generator. During a mission where Voyager crew stole a Borg transwarp coil, Seven of Nine was captured by the Borg. The coil was installed on board the Delta Flyer, for which it was used to proceed to the unicomplex to retrieve Seven. When Kathryn Janeway beamed into the complex, she was stuck there with Seven when the Borg Queen activated a dispersal field. Seven was able to disable the Queen’s interface to the collective and the field was deactivated. With Janeway and Seven retrieved, the Flyer proceeded back to transwarp and returned to Voyager, pursued by the Queen’s diamond; they were briefly forced to transfer power from life support to the shields during the pursuit to give themselves the necessary shield strength to reach the exit point before they were captured.

When Voyager encountered a graviton ellipse, the Delta Flyer was sent in to locate the Ares IV command module, which was lost in the ellipse in 2032. The crew of Tom Paris, Chakotay, and Seven of Nine examined several artifacts trapped in the ellipse before finding the command module. While the Flyer attempted to tractor the module out of the ellipse, the ellipse was hit by a dark matter asteroid. The Delta Flyer was severely damaged and Chakotay was injured. Aboard Voyager, B’Elanna Torres devised a method to use an ion distributor from the Ares IV to repair vital components of the Flyer. Seven beamed to the Ares IV module where she located the distributor and downloaded the sensor data and logs of the Ares IV commander, John Kelly. She returned to the Flyer with the distributor and Kelly’s body. The distributor was connected to the Flyer power systems and the shuttle was able to escape before the ellipse returned to subspace. During a period of shore leave on Voyager, Janeway took the Flyer to a nearby planet in the Norcadian star system. When Seven and Tuvok were kidnapped by Penk, Voyager engaged in battle with his vessel. Penk was able to disable Voyager, but Janeway arrived in the Flyer and was able to disable Penk’s signal antenna, forcing Penk to lower power to his ship’s force fields. This allowed Seven and Tuvok, along with several other competitors held hostage aboard the ship, to be rescued. Janeway and the Flyer returned to Voyager.

Well there’s more info about the Delta Flyer so I guess I will save it for the closer look post & video. Anyways I hope you like the photos and here is the unboxing video.