I think out of most of the sci-fi genres, star wars has to have the most amount of "techno-magic" in it. Hardly anything makes sense, most things are not explained and there are a lot of poor design decisions that just follow the rule of cool.

Not complaining at all, as I like the tie design, no matter how silly it is.

That's because Star Wars isn't really "sci-fi", it is space fantasy.

They use the Force?

Oh, right.

I think you're onto something. I bet every starship has a little mason star of enslaved midiclorians hooked up inside somewhere. Every time there's a jump to hyperspace one midiclorian has to be sacrificed. Only the droids know this secret anymore. All the humanoids forgot this fact from the passage of time.

Now the F-104 star fighter has a drag chute,blown flaps. And speed brakes as well as multidis landing gear brakes.

Necessary as it flew like a brick. .

Not a brick. More like a dart. Great straight line performance with a turning radius that encompassed several countries, Or states depending on deployment.

The first thing that came to mind was"WABCO". Westinghouse Air Brake COmpany.

(Sorry, not enough coffee yet)

Now the F-104 star fighter has a drag chute,blown flaps. And speed brakes as well as multidis landing gear brakes.

Necessary as it flew like a brick. .

Not a brick. More like a dart. Great straight line performance with a turning radius that encompassed several countries, Or states depending on deployment.

Specifically, a lawn dart. Hence so many of them "landing" in ways that a plane isn't supposed to.

Now the F-104 star fighter has a drag chute,blown flaps. And speed brakes as well as multidis landing gear brakes.

Necessary as it flew like a brick. .

Not a brick. More like a dart. Great straight line performance with a turning radius that encompassed several countries, Or states depending on deployment.

Specifically, a lawn dart. Hence so many of them "landing" in ways that a plane isn't supposed to.

I think they had early engine problems coupled with a unique way for pilots to eject. Caused several pilot deaths.

Now the F-104 star fighter has a drag chute,blown flaps. And speed brakes as well as multidis landing gear brakes.

Necessary as it flew like a brick. .

Not a brick. More like a dart. Great straight line performance with a turning radius that encompassed several countries, Or states depending on deployment.

Specifically, a lawn dart. Hence so many of them "landing" in ways that a plane isn't supposed to.

I think they had early engine problems coupled with a unique way for pilots to eject. Caused several pilot deaths.

actually the problem was a bunch of the countries that got them were transiting from old F-84s and such. and were not used to an extremely high performance aircraft. and yes the downward ejection seat didn't help at low level. But as an interceptor it was pretty good particularly the F-104S versions. granted it wasn't a dog-fighter but in vertical slash attacks it was good. It was also able to "supercruse" in a clean configuration. only aircraft of its day that had similar performance was the BAC Lighting.

Now the F-104 star fighter has a drag chute,blown flaps. And speed brakes as well as multidis landing gear brakes.

Necessary as it flew like a brick. .

Not a brick. More like a dart. Great straight line performance with a turning radius that encompassed several countries, Or states depending on deployment.

Specifically, a lawn dart. Hence so many of them "landing" in ways that a plane isn't supposed to.

I think they had early engine problems coupled with a unique way for pilots to eject. Caused several pilot deaths.

actually the problem was a bunch of the countries that got them were transiting from old F-84s and such. and were not used to an extremely high performance aircraft. and yes the downward ejection seat didn't help at low level. But as an interceptor it was pretty good particularly the F-104S versions. granted it wasn't a dog-fighter but in vertical slash attacks it was good. It was also able to "supercruse" in a clean configuration. only aircraft of its day that had similar performance was the BAC Lighting.

As I was told the downward ejection seat was used because the designers weren't sure the pilot would clear the tail and horizontal stabilizers. This changed with the introduction of the zero-zero seat. I think that's what it's called. Then they had to retrain the pilots NOT to do a roll if they flamed out on take off. Several more pilots died until they "unlearned" previous training.

The 104 is an amazing ac. Leading edge radious was so small that special covers were used to keep the ground crew from cutting themselves. It was nicknamed "The Missile with a Man in it".

I love this place!!!

For a REALLY good series (and now TV show) that addresses slowing down in space, check out the James S. A. Corey Expanse series. Basically you burn at 1G till the half-way mark, flip the ship around, and brake at 1G till you come to a stop. Their books (a writing duo) have IMHO the best mix of hard sci-fi and space opera.

In Star Wars space is not a vacuum, hence sound can happen, hence ships need constant forward propulsion.

In newtonian based games either you have forward (and port/starboard) (and dorsal/ventral) thrusters or you just turn on axis and counter thrust.

Same for Star Trek, you could hear every blast phaser and explosion in that show.

Really the only time I've seen space sound done accurate was firefly because all the space scenes were CGI and they didn't put in a sound effects in the budget.

Once again, don't mix physics and star wars they don't get along.

I think the most accurate portrayal of what space combat MIGHT look like is Babylon 5. Not a huge fan myself but thats probably what it would look like

In Star Wars space is not a vacuum, hence sound can happen, hence ships need constant forward propulsion.

In newtonian based games either you have forward (and port/starboard) (and dorsal/ventral) thrusters or you just turn on axis and counter thrust.

Same for Star Trek, you could hear every blast phaser and explosion in that show.

Really the only time I've seen space sound done accurate was firefly because all the space scenes were CGI and they didn't put in a sound effects in the budget.

Edited for spelling, again.

apologies for the sound quality. Video is a little old.

Now I'm no genius and may be missing something blatant here but how on earth do starfighters such as the X-wing and TIE models slow down when they only have rear facing engines.

My understanding of space is that there's no friction and thus no resistance to slow you down, so at best killings the engines completely wouldn't only ensure you continued at your current velocity.

Gravity manipulation could be used in some instances, however my main guess is that TZ's Aetheric rudders are a lot closer to the mark than you would need to be to justify the airplane movement in space.

Star Wars already has an Aetheric plane with different physical properties from the regular universe that starships utilize for travel at FTL speeds. While a large-ish hyperdrive unit is required to fully immerse the ship in hyperspace, I see little reason that smaller devices on the opposing axis of the ship could not be used to interact with hyperspace and use the resulting sub-space friction to steer the craft in the desired direction.

Also if repulsorlift works on some technology other than gravity manipulation; say, by manipulating an object's hyperspace shadow; you could effectively hang objects in regular space by their own mass by "pinning" them to hyperspace with - insert machine here-.

(Edit)

Also, as far as I can tell repulsorlift craft and stations do not push on the air or objects directly beneath them. This points to a more universal lifting agent than aerodynamic force or the like. We know that the Death Star used a large reaction-less drive to push it when not in hyperspace: similar reactionless devices might be the basis for starfighter "flying" movement and repulsorlift in general.

You know of the EM Drive/Cannae Drive? Imagine if in the Star Wars Galaxy they figured out a way to make such a device work either using our current understanding of physics or some as-of-yet undiscovered physical or universal law. An energy-cheap reaction-less motion device would answer many of your Star Wars tech issues, the only questions that then could be asked or answered without actually posessing the technology would be:

What does it run on? (Electricity, heat, crystal vibration.)

What are the constraints? (Does it get more efficient with size? Is it cheap to manufacture? Is it a mature technology?)