Padme the pilot.

Alright, in the beginning of AOTC we see Padme piloting a Naboo fighter, because Typho feels that it is safer. My question is, how could this have been viewed as the safest way to return to Coruscant?

Did Padme find time between being queen and senator to go to flight school? Even if she had, I don't think it could have been for very long.

Why would they decide to put Padme, a rookie pilot in a fighter by herself?

Seems an awful lot like putting a fourteen year old behind the wheel of a car to me.

Your thoughts?

 

Anakin was behind the wheel of a fighter and he was only 9.

 

Anakin also is the chosen one, has already raced pods, knows how to fix anything, and isn't a senator with a bounty on their head.

 

But Padme was 24 in AOTC. Also,she's probably an ok pilot.she helped fly the Nubian cruiser on the way to geononsis.

 

Maybe Typho did the flying while Padme looked out the window.

 

^^^^

That image makes me laugh.

I can picture Padme in the back seat.....Are we there yet......are we there yet....are we there yet?

 

Not so incredible when you consider that someone in her position (as the Queen) might very well have had considerable leisure time - consider how it is that the English royals are so good at fox hunting, bird shooting, polo etc. Flying a fighter is like riding a horse.

Also, it prefigures the kind of shenanigans that Leia is to get up to in the OT. besides which, it makes Padme a much more interesting character and a more suitable partner for the chosen one. I mean, he isn't exactly going to go out with a book nerd now is he?

 

If she can successfully be the Queen at age 14, I'm pretty sure flying a starfighter would be a piece of cake

 

Auto-pilot is also an option, isn't it?




Mace Windy,
too windy for spoilers!

 

not for traveling through hyperspace buddy


it's not like dusting crops and i don't think it's like argueming with diplomats, making proposals to the senate or negotiating peace terms either

 

Ah yes. Hyperspace. Point taken.




Mace Windy,
too windy for spoilers!

 

As long as she does not fly like some women drive, then again look at what happened to Emilia Eirhart (sp).

 

It could've been slave circuited. Where someone on the cruiser or even Typho himself was piloting Padme's fighter by remote control-the same way droid starfighters stay in their formations and get and share new orders from the TF droid control ship.

But I rather think she'd know how to fly a fighter...she knew how to pick up a blaster in Ep I and be a crack shot with it afterall...clearly she's not just the run of the mill public servant.

 

Padmé probably had it set on self-control to just follow the cruiser.

 

If Anakin can levitate a steele ball why can't she fly. Why does it have to make perfect sense to us.

 

I am sure R2 was in her fighter for a reason

 

To Dana28: The movie doesn't have to make perfect sense, but why else have places like TF.N, then to ask these types of questions?

I enjoy these talks becuse you hear different opinions and are forced to think about things that you otherwise may never have. (Would you ever have thought of this, if not for me?)

I for one, would not enjoy coming to these boards, just to see everyone always saying the same thing.

Truthfully though, I often post these types of things not only for the reasons stated above, but also because I love the "humorous" answers that come with these discussions as well.

 

R2-D2 probably plotted the hyperspace course for her.

 

That was one of the best scenes of the movie. I wish I could tell Leia that her mother was a pilot.

 

She was training in hand to hand combat and weapons. Why would someone not think to train her to fly a ship since it is about as common as driving cars is to us?

 

The Naboo Senatorial transport has/had plug-in fighter fuelling sockets along the leading edges of her wings. All Padmé had to do was plug herself in at Naboo, sit there while the ship went through hyperspace, unplug herself at Coruscant and fly down to the landing platform. It wouldn't be much harder that flying a landspeeder.

 

Well, Padme flying a spaceship is probably not much different than any 24 year old driving a car. However, I do doubt she could have really mastered a Naboo fighter specifically.