A-Wing

***A-Wing***

The **A-wing starfighter** is a starfighter used by the Alliance to Restore the Republic (Rebel Alliance), seeing action during the Battle of Endor.

# Description

The A-Wing is a relatively small fighter yet has good firepower, is very fast, is very maneuverable, and carries a hyperdrive to travel from system to system. Unlike the imperial Tie fighters, which are in many ways the closest approximate for the A-Wings performance and size, the fighter has powerful shields to help protect the fighter. All this makes for a very lethal fighter and a fighter that has becoming very popular with the hotshots among the Alliance forces. If compared to fighters of the later twentieth century, they could be seen as having the same relationship to the X-Wing as the F-16 Falcon had to the F-15 Eagle.

The profile of the A-Wing is very aerodynamic. The fighter is wedge shaped with the fighters cockpit in the approximately the center of the fighter. The pilot ejects in a similar way to the X-Wing and Y-Wing fighter and the pilot ejects after the top of fighters cockpit has been blown off. On the sides of the fighter are two powerful laser cannons in turrets. The turrets do not have full rotation but do have the ability to move up to 30 degrees up, down, or side to side. Behind and inwards from the turrets, the fighter has two very powerful ion engines. Above and below the engines are steering vanes to increase the fighters atmospheric performance. The fighter does not carry a droid but instead the computer has the ability to store up to four jump locations. When the fighter was designed, atmospheric performance was strongly considered which resulted in a fighter with very good performance in an atmosphere.

The fighter has only two laser cannons instead of the four cannons carried by the X-Wing but each of the cannons is slightly more powerful. They are more compact than the mounts on the Y-Wing, are not fixed in place, and have the ability to traverse to hit targets. If the A-Wing carried proton torpedoes, the fighter could have only carried about 4 total so instead the A-Wing carries the smaller concussion missiles. The Concussion missile is the equivalent of a medium range missile in Rifts. While not as capable against capital ships as proton torpedoes, the concussion missiles are still effective against larger ships. Like proton torpedoes, they can also be targeted on fighters.

# Characteristics

The A-wing starfighter is a high-speed interceptor flown by Alliance to Restore the Republic (Rebel Alliance) pilots. Crewed by a single being, they were wedge-shaped with the dual engines mounted on the stern and featured a hyperdrive. The fighters were armed with two laser cannons and concussion missiles. The A-wings measured 9.6 meters.

# History

Green Squadron deployed with their fighters to join the Rebel Fleet] in preparation for the Battle of Endor. Under Lando Calrissian's command, they flew against Death Star II. The Imperial Fleet ambushed them, and Green Squadron fought against the Imperial fleet. Once Han Solo's strike team brought down the Death Star's shield generator, one pilot flew into the Death Star, but broke off to draw TIE fighters away from Calrissian. Green Leader was hit by fire and crashed into the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer *Executor*, resulting in its destruction.

# Behind the scenes

Designed by Ralph McQuarrie, they were originally colored blue, but had to be changed due to the limited bluescreen technology at the time.

# Sources

* Star Wars Encyclopedia (First identification) (Superseded by Star Wars Databank)
* Star Wars in 100 Scenes on Wookipedia
* Databank - A-wing Fighter

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 *Encyclopedia (StarWars.com)*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conversions/Rifts-SW-Vehicles/Alliance\_A-Wing\_Fighter.htm
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi