ST Incom T-70: X-Wings in the ST

I am fairly certain that it will take just a few seconds of seeing and hearing the new X-Wing in flight/action for the vast majority of folks to get over the new look.

 

I always liked Colin Cantwell's early model version of the X-Wing. I believe they described it as a dragster, with that long nose. It would look really good spinning while firing blasters in space battles. It appears to have a lot of maneuverability. I kind of hoped they would reach back for inspiration with some of these designs.

I do love the recent incarnation of the X-Wing, though. It's derivative, but updated and might tell us more about the state of the galaxy at this time. i.e., there hasn't been time for a lot of changes and developments.

 

Immortiss - not a fan of how far those S-foils open.

 

Weird looking design but why not?

 

As my sweet Italian grandmother used to say, "You gotta your mind, I gotta mine".

 

I like it, I like it a lot

 

I wonder if the B-wing owes something to that - all wings at 90 degrees to each other?

 

it is a true x.

 

I think the majority of people will think cool spaceship and not concern themselves that it is a new look, but maybe be slightly annoyed by the guy or girl complaining about it two rows back

 

The old X-Wing was the T-65 model. Perhaps this new one is a T-66, or T-70, or T-77, or T-anynumberhigherthan65.

I will hitherto refer to this as the "T>65" X-Wing.

 

Why, exactly, do X-Wing's have such crappy paint jobs? They're not in-atmosphere very long. Is it because of the action they see in space?

 

Have you seen the space shuttle after landing? It's not in atmosphere very long, but atmospheric re-entry is a bitch on a paint-job!

So much for that pristine white...



You think the Alliance is going to re-paint after every atmospheric entry like NASA does?

Keep in mind, the T-65 X-wing was brand new in A New Hope, and only saw it's first action in battle when the Alliance stole the Death Star plans, allowing the Tantive IV to escape the battle with said plans.

You saw how much the paint-jobs had already suffered by the time Leia finally got to the Rebel Base on Yavin IV with those plans. The attack on the death star itself was only the 2nd battle the X-wings were involved in.

With the paint jobs getting affected that much in such a short time, I don't think the Alliance was going to use a lot of resources on keeping them pristine.

 

I can't remember any of these 'facts' being mentioned in ANH.

 

A lot of that is inferred from the opening crawl, which says the rebels had just won their first victory when they stole the DS plans.

Personally, I believe they probably also lost a few battles before Yavin. That would explain the battered appearance of the X-wings.

 

It's the new weapon in the Alliance arsenal that gave the Rebels the advantage in combat. It's implied by the arms race it spurred, the Empire developing the tie-interceptor in response, and the alliance developing the A-wing in response to the interceptor.

Notice the A-wing...also a new fighter when we see it, also showing the scouring already so early.

 

The alliance doesn't have time to fix every bit of cosmetic damage to their ships I guess.

 

I'm still pretty unconvinced that the two engines split down the middle. This is a dual engine wing design rather than a quad engine. Basically instead of four small engines you have two huge ones with bigger intakes. It wouldn't make any logical sense if the engines split in half, and the fan made 3D mockup showing the wing split not only looks bad but is inaccurate in it's depictions of the wing's and engine's sizes. I'm almost certain that the wings attach and separate on the outside of the engines.

 

Since when does tech in Star Wars have to make logical sense? I think the 3D mockup looks awesome!

I think with the McQuarrie design, and with how this looks, and you see the seams clearly splitting the engine and down the middle of the wing... it's pretty obvious. JMO.

 

darthpopper There's a bit of a correction that may help with your understanding. The engines don't split in half. Basically the way they've designed it is each intake is a half-circle. When the two half-circles come together, they form a full circle. In my estimation, it looks to be more aerodynamic than two smaller circles. Having the larger opening for the scoop would also force more air into the engine to create greater thrust.

The wing attachment is an assumption drawn from zooming in on the guns on the outer tips of the wings. There's a separation there that implies a split.

That being said, you might be right on the attachment of the wings. We won't know until release date... which we're ALL eagerly anticipating!

 

When we say splitting the engine, we're saying it's still 4 engines not 2. I think that much has been clear from the beginning.

 

An important thing to note is that there are still four thrust nozzles at the back. This was discussed in great length when the clip first surfaced, but it seems each engine has a large half-circle intake now, instead of four small full circles.

 

I don't think I ever understood why it would need intakes anyway. Space has no air! What's it intaking? Is that only used for in-atmosphere thrust? If so, where's the intake on, say, the Tantive IV?

 

X-wings fly both in air and in space. I would assume the intakes provide more thrust when in atmosphere.

As for the Tantive IV, you're talking about a different class of ship that doesn't need agility in atmosphere.

 

I've heard a couple reasons (mostly from the X-Wing books), the most compelling being that they house retro-thrusters for deceleration. Other ships, and especially big ones, use several thrusters too small to be obvious.
They could be a cooling system, similar in function but different in design to the TIE's wings, which radiates some massless particle to vent excess heat. (Photons or ST's favorite, Neutrinos. Overheating is a big problem in space, where there's no air to conduct it away.)
Those are my favorite two anyways, but there are many. Another personal one is simply that they are only used in atmo to ram compressed air from atmospheres. If breathable, this could be used to extend the life support mission-time, and any gas could be used as reaction mass for limited maneuvering or generate electricity for basic diagnostics if the main generator/engines go down. A ship skimming the upper atmosphere at mach ridiculous with Star Wars tech could compress a large mass of air into a very small volume. Such a system would add great robustness to a fighter like the X-Wing as an analog backup, but it's ultimately far from necessary, explaining why many ships (Y-wings, and especially TIEs) don't include it.

 

What also needs to be remembered is that IT IS STAR WARS. It doesn't matter how or why it works... It just does.