Flight of the X-Wing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jXwA8eP5u0

:roll:

 

i alway thought the xwing looked like a bad design , poor lift ,no tail or canard , very high drag

of course mabey it was easy to fly ,luke skywalker wasnt even in the military and had zero stick time in the xwing yet he was allowed to pilot one of their valuble fighters in what was to them the battle of midway ,he succesfully pickled his bomb on target and he had his targeting computer turned off to boot . i think he was like the sole survivor of the entire attack force too , what a guy!

 

That's the thing with spacecraft, though - they don't need lift, or even wings, and drag is not an issue in a vaccuum. I always wondered why all the fighter planes in Star Wars had wings at all. Probably to make them look like fighters...

 

Wedge Antilles also survives in his damaged X-wing and a single Y-Wing is seen fleeing the exploding Death Star with the X wings and the Millenium Falcon.

I always wondered what the debriefing for Luke would have been like.

"So you did manage to destroy the Death Star but why exactly did you turn off your targetting computer?"

"Well you see, the voice in my head told me to."

 

I think the natural response would be to tell them to get stuffed as it worked didn't it!

Lucas is no physicist and all the star wars effects are false. There should be virtually no fire in space, you can't hear the shots whizzing by etc.

However he was strongly influenced by the war movies with the fighter battles and actually used gun cam footage in the pre release versions to simulate the space battles as the model shots took much longer than the actor filming.

FNG

 

Most of them were atmosphere-capable, so need wings etc.

At least, that is the geeky excuse. I prefer your reasons

 

Also fun to note;
Since there is no friction in space there is no need to constantly create thrust.
In fact, nearly all those sci-fi vessels which have flames spouting out the back constantly would be in for a highly accelerated ride.

 

An X-Wing would not be able to generate enough thrust through it's enginers to get to escape velocity so it's wings are worthless as there must be something else happening. Plus the thrusters are only rear facing so how does it land and take off without a 10000 foot long runway?

As to the vid, why would you spend months making such a detailed model just to blow it up? You might as well just buy old cars and blow them up strieght away

FNG

 

if i recall correctly, the X-wing model just kind of happened to explode, due to some malfunction

 

Vehicles in the Star Wars universe are able to hover due to a contraption called a repulsor lift.

 

that was an expensive and time intensive model to just throw away ,i guess those guys must have expected it to be a succecful rocket .

nothing against lucas ,sw was a great flick when it came out 30 years ago . i still say his airplanes wont fly in our atmosphere according to laws of physics ect .also the imperial walker is a bad idea .imp walker is a mbt right ??..so , in the real world you want a tank to be a LOW as possible and hard to see .the walker would be impossible to miss ..i do admit the walkers are quite intimidating as are the martian craft in the last he well remake , tall is scarey somehow ...and star wars is art and not science .

 

the AT-AT is more of a heavily armored assault vehicle that can carry stormtroopers or hoverbikes in addition to it's chin-mounted blasters.

to avoid posting a big fat block of text: http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Gr ... ur-SW.html

the AT-AT section explains everything way better than i could

 

Surely the only reason for the AT-AT's existance is to allow someone to trip it up with a very thin cable (presumably of pure Handwavium)

 

Having read the AT-AT section I've got to say I'm less than convinced by the whole idea, the phrase that sums it up pretty well really is:

Bottom line, I think Majorwoody is pretty much on the ball with this one, Star Wars is entertainment and walkers look cool. The great thing with a creating science fiction universe is a lot of the laws of physics can be ignored and explained with either of two phrases:

"It has an -insert sciency type name here- Drive"

"It has an -insert sciency type name here- Field"

But common sense and practicality can't be quite so easily over-ruled.

If you want to explain that AT-ATs look cool, fine no argument. If you want to seriously suggest that walkers are ever likely to be a practical addition to the battlefield (And bear in mind this is comming from a long time Battletech fan), sorry no-way. Anything a walker could do in practically every case could be done cheaper, better, safer and more effectively by taking the legs off and sticking wheels or tracks on instead. In any realistic sci-fi battle a walker should be toast.

If the advantage of being able to see over obstacles was so great in reality WWII would have ended with armies fielding tanks that looked like massive armoured siege towers rather than striving for the lowest practical silhouette.

 

first, i cannot imagine a realistic sci-fi battle, so i'll leave that alone

now, Walkers do make sense, in the SW universe at least. AT-AT's are armored enough to take a beating (snowspeeder blasters and rebel cannons barely scratched them), and have exceptional range, considering the blasters are line-of-sight only (the generator in The Empire Strikes Back was destroyed at around 17 kilometers). the sheer size and potential to wipe out cities serves to keep imperial subjects in check, and the cost is neglible when you control a better part of the galaxy...

Anyway, where i'm trying to go is basically that all of this makes sense in the SW universe. just like the Star Trek ship-to-ship battles (and the lack of any weapons other than phasers, even in boarding actions) make sense in the ST universe. or Battletech, with mechs and dropships and armored battle suits... it all makes sense, just not in our world

besides, it's fiction. suspension of disbelief and all that

 

Well, with the AT AT would u rather have a tracked vehicle that gets disabled and stuck in the snow. Plus, its heavily armoured and at a high level to reign destruction. Plus, its less material then some huge bulk floating over the expanse.

Well, it would be kind of odd to have a huge space battle with no sound. Mivie goers would just be thinking "what the fuck is this"


Another oddity, why is the stormtroopers aim so bad ? Is it those helmet of theirs ? or just to create action while the main characters are getting away ?

 

any afv commander would rather be hull down than hull up and nothing could be more hull up than a giant white imperial walker .i would rather be hull down with one track off than stumbleing about above the tree line ,a magnet for evey piece of flying metal on the battlefeild .


i have to agree the shooting skills of the stormtroopers is truely awfull . if those are the empires combat elite ,i would hate to see how their ordinary infantrymen shoot ,perhaps it is the helmets with the really dark sunglasses ,and those white plastic suites must be a great comfort if your trying to set up an ambush in the woods in late august . and hans solo is right ,never bring a light sabre to a blaster fight ,kid .

 

Stormtroopers are pretty competent, as long as they're not shooting at the heroes... a basic rule of action movies

 

We have had the walkers vs wheels argumnt several times now

Ok, allowing that Star Wars is fiction...


Basically, the AT-ATs have massive psychological value - they are very imposing, and the base they attacked had no defensive weaponry that could harm them (this does not mean they are impregnible, just that the Rebels could not afford decent weaponry).

Walkers actually have a much higher ground pressure than wheeled or tracked vehicles - all their weight is on 4 (or 3 while they are walking) relatively small areas.


Bottom line - wheeled or tracked vehicles are far more practical in the vast majority of situations. However, the AT-AT's strong point is in scaring enemies. Imagine being attacked by a ginormous walking machine that your guns can't dent, but can blow chunks out of you from 17 miles off. Demoralising or what?

 

Love them or hate them,everyone here would go for a ride in an AT-AT if given the chance.