I hope that list is accurate just to watch the prequel haters squirm!

I can feel them nervously squirming right now.

I generally like the ARC-170, but I've always been bothered by it having s-foils (same with the Eta-2 for that matter). On the X-Wing and B-Wing, there are weapons at the end of the s-foils, so having them be able to spread out for combat, while folding in for landing made a kind of sense (if only very loosely). There don't seem to be any reason for the s-foils to even exist, aside from being able to link them to x-wings...

Yes they do. They have radiators on them to bleed heat.

I hope that list is accurate just to watch the prequel haters squirm!

I can feel them nervously squirming right now.

I generally like the ARC-170, but I've always been bothered by it having s-foils (same with the Eta-2 for that matter). On the X-Wing and B-Wing, there are weapons at the end of the s-foils, so having them be able to spread out for combat, while folding in for landing made a kind of sense (if only very loosely). There don't seem to be any reason for the s-foils to even exist, aside from being able to link them to x-wings...

Yes they do. They have radiators on them to bleed heat.

You mean solar collectors.

Oh wait, that's another topic.

I hope that list is accurate just to watch the prequel haters squirm!

I can feel them nervously squirming right now.

I generally like the ARC-170, but I've always been bothered by it having s-foils (same with the Eta-2 for that matter). On the X-Wing and B-Wing, there are weapons at the end of the s-foils, so having them be able to spread out for combat, while folding in for landing made a kind of sense (if only very loosely). There don't seem to be any reason for the s-foils to even exist, aside from being able to link them to x-wings...

Yes they do. They have radiators on them to bleed heat.

No, they just wanted it to look like the X-wing so you knew they were the "good" guys. It's like poetry, it rhymes.

During battle, the craft's S-foils opened to expose heat sinks and radiators to help cool the ship, and the two main forward medium laser cannons located on the underside of its outer wings were uncommonly large and powerful.

Source is this book: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Ships_of_the_Galaxy

Perhaps they were put there just to make it look similar to the X-wing, however, they do actually have a purpose.

Really? I didnt think you could fit 2 crew in a normal ball cockpit.

You couldn't. But that doesn't stop them from saying you can anyway.

Really does make me think that the interior set was actually for the concept art version and they wimped out at the last minute and used the retread.

During battle, the craft's S-foils opened to expose heat sinks and radiators to help cool the ship, and the two main forward medium laser cannons located on the underside of its outer wings were uncommonly large and powerful.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aggressive_ReConnaissance-170_starfighter/Canon

Source is this book: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Ships_of_the_Galaxy

Perhaps they were put there just to make it look similar to the X-wing, however, they do actually have a purpose.

I though it was so that they could flap real fast, and the plane flew like a hummingbird.

Naw, but seriously, what idiot hides heat sinks and then goes "Oh crap, now I need to put in a complicated hydraulic wing system. just to vent the heat" instead of just putting in better-ventilated heat sinks and radiation fins. No wonder nobody flies the ARC anymore, they're the crappy Soviet-bloc cars of space.

Spehhss magic. = Why S-foils are even a thing.

During battle, the craft's S-foils opened to expose heat sinks and radiators to help cool the ship, and the two main forward medium laser cannons located on the underside of its outer wings were uncommonly large and powerful.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aggressive_ReConnaissance-170_starfighter/Canon

Source is this book: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Ships_of_the_Galaxy

Perhaps they were put there just to make it look similar to the X-wing, however, they do actually have a purpose.

I though it was so that they could flap real fast, and the plane flew like a hummingbird.

Naw, but seriously, what idiot hides heat sinks and then goes "Oh crap, now I need to put in a complicated hydraulic wing system. just to vent the heat" instead of just putting in better-ventilated heat sinks and radiation fins. No wonder nobody flies the ARC anymore, they're the crappy Soviet-bloc cars of space.

At least Lambdas, Starwings and V-19s swing their wings out of the way to land. That's at least analogous to real world carrier based jets.

During battle, the craft's S-foils opened to expose heat sinks and radiators to help cool the ship, and the two main forward medium laser cannons located on the underside of its outer wings were uncommonly large and powerful.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aggressive_ReConnaissance-170_starfighter/Canon

Source is this book: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Ships_of_the_Galaxy

Perhaps they were put there just to make it look similar to the X-wing, however, they do actually have a purpose.

I though it was so that they could flap real fast, and the plane flew like a hummingbird.

Naw, but seriously, what idiot hides heat sinks and then goes "Oh crap, now I need to put in a complicated hydraulic wing system. just to vent the heat" instead of just putting in better-ventilated heat sinks and radiation fins. No wonder nobody flies the ARC anymore, they're the crappy Soviet-bloc cars of space.

The same could be said for the X-wing, who's wings open specifically for the same reason. If you're going to criticize something, make sure you criticize everything that uses it.

I thought the Xwing opened its foils to increase its spread of fire and to not cause the cannons to fry each other when pressed together?

I thought the Xwing opened its foils to increase its spread of fire and to not cause the cannons to fry each other when pressed together?

Creating a "complicated hydraulic wing system" just because the designer forgot the barrels can't be so close to each other would be beyond stupid.

I hope that list is accurate just to watch the prequel haters squirm!

I can feel them nervously squirming right now.

I generally like the ARC-170, but I've always been bothered by it having s-foils (same with the Eta-2 for that matter). On the X-Wing and B-Wing, there are weapons at the end of the s-foils, so having them be able to spread out for combat, while folding in for landing made a kind of sense (if only very loosely). There don't seem to be any reason for the s-foils to even exist, aside from being able to link them to x-wings...

Yes they do. They have radiators on them to bleed heat.

Making your heat sinks need motors (which would generate more heat) in order to make them useful is pretty dumb. There are far, far better ways to design heat sinks. That's definitely a case of retro-actively coming up with an excuse to have s-foils on these craft.

What a dumb design. What if the s-foils can't open for some reason? Does the fighter overheat and fail? No wonder they stopped using them!

Yeah, spot on, with engines allowing for tousands of g of acceleration, weapons vaporizing starships and shields designed to absorb the insanely powerful bursts of energy, the motor opening S-foils once per battle is surely a significant source of heat that can't be overlooked :D

And obviously the same can be applied to the X-wing, and it has been in service for over 30 years.

I thought the Xwing opened its foils to increase its spread of fire and to not cause the cannons to fry each other when pressed together?

Increasing spread of fire would be counterproductive, and in SW laser bolts don't go exactly where the barrel is pointed anyway.

Creating a "complicated hydraulic wing system" just because the designer forgot the barrels can't be so close to each other would be beyond stupid.

Can I have an example why it would be counterproductive? It would allow you to shoot one laser at the lower left, possibly causing your target to move up and right, but that's where the next laser in succession would come from, an as a long as the lasers were produced from opposite angles in succession it would create a pretty wide spread to trap a target and keep them from escaping. I'm not saying it's 100% efficient because not all your laser bolts would hit, however, I think it's a pretty neat design that probably upped the chance for the Xwing to hit anything.

This was kind of apparent in SWTOR's ship mode You could go from heavy hitting lasers that would come from two points but needed you to be hyper accurate to hit anything or you could go small blasts that hit everywhere and peppered your enemy which took a longer time to kill them but you hit more often.

Makes sense to me. Kind of like the difference between firing a bolt action rifle at a clay pigeon and firing a shotgun.

Because you don't want to trap your enemy, you want to kill him, as fast as possible. In order to do that you want your shots to go exactly where you aim, especially in a high speed combat when the target is in position to be shot at for a fraction of a second and especially with such a low rate of fire as most SW starfighter weapons have.

Aircraft designers stopped putting mashineguns on wings as soon as the problem of the propereller blades getting in the way has been solved, and mashineguns have RoF several orders of magnitude higher than SW weapons.

Even Normal Tie Fighters had pretty roomy cockpits

For how effecient TIEs are supposed to be they have a lot of empty space in there! Think of how many Lasats you can fit!

It shouldn't be surprising to anyone how large TIE cockpits are...but maybe that's just me. I have built my fair share of TIE models over the years.

Is bigger than the landers that carried two men to the surface of the moon.

Of course there is a lot of room in Tie Fighters. You need room for accessories...

https://www.youtube.com/dKcZ8u5fbyw

This is what I imagine when ever Vader barrel rolls twice.

Aircraft designers stopped putting mashineguns on wings as soon as the problem of the propereller blades getting in the way has been solved, and mashineguns have RoF several orders of magnitude higher than SW weapons.

Actually that's just blatantly not true. Even after they solved that problem aircraft were still commonly designed with wing mounted weapons. The weapons were generally built to be pointed slightly inwards, giving the aircraft an optimum-range where all weapon's fire converged. This gave the pilot a kind of flexibility, as firing at another craft at that optimum-range dealt maximum damage, but firing slightly outside that optimum range gave a greater chance of scoring at least some hits as the fire was more diffuse.

Captain nitpick... AWAY!

Of course there is a lot of room in Tie Fighters. You need room for accessories...

https://www.youtube.com/dKcZ8u5fbyw

This is what I imagine when ever Vader barrel rolls twice.

I would say something about a stormy piloting a TIE, but the DS just blew up, so I'm sure things got a little crazy. Maybe it was Davin Felth...

On the wingtip weapons issue, corran horn specifcially states that he sets his X-wing's lasers ahead of time to a certain range that makes his lasers converge at close range.

So it seems that the pilots of Xwings (at least) can adjust it, now i'm do not recall if he had to do it with controls in the cockpit or if they were done by literally adjusting/tweaking the angle of the cannons themselves externally.

If it is something that can be done with cockpit controls, I can see that being quite useful, and maybe even able to be done in a long engagemen, if a pilot knows he may need close range shots for some targets and longer range for others.

As for the S-foils comment, someone else brought up that they are radiators for the heat disspipation of the cannons, several sources say that, I believe novels and a few rpg and non-rpg technical manuals.

Aircraft designers stopped putting mashineguns on wings as soon as the problem of the propereller blades getting in the way has been solved, and mashineguns have RoF several orders of magnitude higher than SW weapons.

Actually that's just blatantly not true. Even after they solved that problem aircraft were still commonly designed with wing mounted weapons.

Actually that's just blatantly not true. But OK, who says A must say B, if they were so "commonly" designed that way, could you provide a few examples of aircrafts without a propeller in front of the central fuselage which utilize wing mounted weapons?

The choice is to either have your weapons accurate at one specific range and have some "spread" few meters closer and further than the optimal distance vs having them accurate at all ranges... that's not really a choice, is it? But go on, I'd be glad to be proven wrong with those numerous examples of the "common" design.

Aircraft designers stopped putting mashineguns on wings as soon as the problem of the propereller blades getting in the way has been solved, and mashineguns have RoF several orders of magnitude higher than SW weapons.

Actually that's just blatantly not true. Even after they solved that problem aircraft were still commonly designed with wing mounted weapons. The weapons were generally built to be pointed slightly inwards, giving the aircraft an optimum-range where all weapon's fire converged. This gave the pilot a kind of flexibility, as firing at another craft at that optimum-range dealt maximum damage, but firing slightly outside that optimum range gave a greater chance of scoring at least some hits as the fire was more diffuse.

Captain nitpick... AWAY!

Yup. One of my favourite facts about aircraft is that some of the very first mounted machineguns which were synced to the speed of the prop so that the bullets actually passed between the prop blades.

As early as 1913 in fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronization_gear

I think the reason that it fell out of use for a while was the change to more complex engine types which couldn't be as easily geared in that manner, but I'm not sure.

This has been a derail about cool engineering. Back to your regularly scheduled bickering about heatsinks.

Aircraft designers stopped putting mashineguns on wings as soon as the problem of the propereller blades getting in the way has been solved, and mashineguns have RoF several orders of magnitude higher than SW weapons.

Actually that's just blatantly not true. Even after they solved that problem aircraft were still commonly designed with wing mounted weapons. The weapons were generally built to be pointed slightly inwards, giving the aircraft an optimum-range where all weapon's fire converged. This gave the pilot a kind of flexibility, as firing at another craft at that optimum-range dealt maximum damage, but firing slightly outside that optimum range gave a greater chance of scoring at least some hits as the fire was more diffuse.

Captain nitpick... AWAY!

Yup. One of my favourite facts about aircraft is that some of the very first mounted machineguns which were synced to the speed of the prop so that the bullets actually passed between the prop blades.

As early as 1913 in fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronization_gear

I think the reason that it fell out of use for a while was the change to more complex engine types which couldn't be as easily geared in that manner, but I'm not sure.

This has been a derail about cool engineering. Back to your regularly scheduled bickering about heatsinks.

The very wiki article you linked explains why synchronization fell out of use - it reduces the rate of fire and engines are bulky which means you can't mount multiple weapons (further reducing the weight of fire) and have limited space for ammuniton.

As soon as the propeller getting in the way of bullets stopped being a problem the guns were moved back to the optimal position.

Aircraft designers stopped putting mashineguns on wings as soon as the problem of the propereller blades getting in the way has been solved, and mashineguns have RoF several orders of magnitude higher than SW weapons.

Actually that's just blatantly not true. Even after they solved that problem aircraft were still commonly designed with wing mounted weapons. The weapons were generally built to be pointed slightly inwards, giving the aircraft an optimum-range where all weapon's fire converged. This gave the pilot a kind of flexibility, as firing at another craft at that optimum-range dealt maximum damage, but firing slightly outside that optimum range gave a greater chance of scoring at least some hits as the fire was more diffuse.

Captain nitpick... AWAY!

Yup. One of my favourite facts about aircraft is that some of the very first mounted machineguns which were synced to the speed of the prop so that the bullets actually passed between the prop blades.

As early as 1913 in fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronization_gear

I think the reason that it fell out of use for a while was the change to more complex engine types which couldn't be as easily geared in that manner, but I'm not sure.

This has been a derail about cool engineering. Back to your regularly scheduled bickering about heatsinks.

If I recall, before that they just put metal plates on the propellers, to deflect the bullets...and most of the time they wouldn't fly back and kill the pilot...mostly.

Edit: Oh, apparently the problem with deflector gear was more the loss of optimal propeller function, from having big deflector wedges on them.