Do x-wings have hyperdrive (or lightspeed)? I always thought they were more like tie-fighters, short range ships But then I started to think. Luke goes from hoth to see yoda then cloud city. Seems like a lot of flying. But maybe not. The falcon didn't use the hyperdrive to get to bespin
Yes, X-Wings have hyperdrive. In the films, the ones in the Rebel fleet were shown jumping into hyperspace. The Falcon didn't use a hyperdrive to get to Bespin, but then it was not coming from Dagobah like Luke's X-Wing. Now that I think about it...sure it looked neat as it was, but would it have been safer and less power consuming for the X-Wings and the Falcon to have remained on the capital ships during the trip there and then deployed once they came out of hyperspace, or would that have taken too long for the surprise attack?
I can see why you thought X-wings wouldn't have hyperdrives, as they aren't much larger than TIE's (although they probably have quite a bit more mass as TIE's are so spindly). Vader's TIE also has a hyperdrive his ship looks really small (like, well, a Jedi Starfighter from Episode III) when seen in profile even though it has a big boxy back end. . . (now now). It makes one wonder how much space a hyperdrive requires, and the obvious answer for the X-wing would be those four engines behind the cockpit (I'm sure this is explained in one of those technical manuals or cross-section books, but going from the films this is a reasonable conclusion). Good comment on why the starfighters didn't dock on the capital ships before the Endor attack and you're probably right: in universe answer is that every second counts in a surprise assault, and filmmaking answer is that it looks more impressive with tons of ships making the jump to lightspeed simultaneously (I love that shot!).
Yes it did. The Falcon used its backup hyperdrive to limp from Anoat to Bespin. Without faster-than-light travel, such a trip would have taken years, if not decades.
No dumb questions, and all that. We see X-Wings go into hyperdrive a few times in the trilogy, and it's implied that they have them in other ways, like the mentioned Hoth-Dagobah-Bespin trips.
Vader's did, but it was one of a kind. TIE fighters not having hyperdrive strikes me as pointing to the cold-blooded attitude of the Empire towards their fighter pilots -they were as expendable as the hardware they were controlling. Any stragglers who might have survived a lost battle were more than welcome to die in the cold of space after the rest of the fleet had retreated. I'm not sure how true this is, but apparently during WWII, the number of Japanese volunteers for Kamikaze piloting well & truly exceeded the actual planes they could supply for such suicide missions, so towards the end, the Japanese came up with cheap aircraft which were little more than flying bombs with joysticks for the pilots to use. That's always connected with TIE fighters for me.
I would imagine it would be far cheaper to have all the fighters in the hold of a star destroyer when going into hyperspace than equipping each ship with its own hyperdrive. The Empire has the money, but they probably don't mind saving a buck where they can.
Because the Empire made TIEs cheaply. They're little more than a flying box with weapons attached. They don't even have life support; each pilot has to wear a self-contained suit. No shields, either.
Plus, TIEs are designed to be completely dependent on their motherships, so that they value them as much as their own lives (since they are, essentially). Notice TIEs have no way of landing on their own, and have to be docked with crane-like devices in star destroyers.
I might add that standard TIE Fighters (the straight-winged ones) are physically capable of landing on a flat surface, albeit very carefully.
