This will probably be the stupidest question you've ever seen I'm sure, but it's something that is dreadfully bugging me. Besides the possibility of an inside computer that's linked to a camera outside, how does the pilot, pilot this ship? If you look at the front, the nose is completely blocking the cockpit, and it's not even curved down or lowered to give him any noticable vision at all. The only vision is if he sticks his head out of the window to look through the side. All of the other ships so far have a reasonable way to view out the cockpit (except the milenium falcon imo I don't know why it would be on the farthest side of the right on such a large ship but hey a skilled pilot knows better than me).

Does this bother anyone else? I'm not dissing the miniature or the ship or saying it won't be playable, I'm just curious as to how one could actually pilot it.

I like sci-fi vehicles with completely enclosed vehicle cockpits for protection, so no this doesn't bother me.

At least this isn't a discussion on the HWK-290's scale.

Harleequin said:

Ace Ventura begs to differ

Well i don't know but what about a camera or two in the front and some HDTv in the cockpit. Okay if you take some stray ion cannon hit this might break but else, we are in a scifi setting, hell they have technical gizmis for everything so this should not be a problem.

I have always asked myself why an ISD or even the Executor has such an exposed bridge (and shield generators while we're at it), they could enclose it in the belly of the ship so nothing close to the disaster like at the Endor battle could happen XD

I can’t remember where I read it so I can’t quote it but the pilot wears googols that are tied in to a camera in the front of the ship. Jan Ors could be seen with these goggles on even off ship.

Yes the pilot wears a set of goggles which show everything in front of the ship as well as a hud system. As for scale Norse….what is there to disscuss. Wookieepedia had it's info from a 20+ year old RPG sourcebook from a company that made it's info up. FFG actually went to Lucasfilms, the company that owns Lucas Arts (which made Dark Forces), and was told it was 16.5 meters long. Thus I changed Wookieepeida's entry to the correct info.

For a real world example, look at the Spirit of St. Louis. Lindburgh put extra fuel tanks in front which blocked his forward vision completely. To see forward, he either stuck his head out the side window or used a periscope.

Bjorn Rockfist said:

Oh I agree, it's just one of those things that's been debated on the BGG forums. Occasionally the A-Wing scale debates are brought up but I also agree with LFL's decision to scale the A-Wing where it is.

ForceM said:

I always assumed that the navigation bridge was up there to afford the crew a clear view of the ship when docking (so it doesn't crash into the station). It's stated in the Expanded Universe that star destroyers of various classes have auxillary bridges in the bowels of the ship so I always assumed the Imperial Navy was too arrogant to ever send its bridge crew down to the battle bridge during combat.

Even our pilots of yesteryear could fly by instruments alone. I'm sure then can also in a Galaxy, far, far, away..

This is daft haha.

Its not like in Star Trek they ever had windows for their space craft to see where they were flying

And Star Wars vessels didn't have big bridge windows all over? Seems to me those star destroyers had far more windows on the bridge then the Enterprise ever thought to have.

My understanding is that in space, it's very difficult to see anything but extremely large objects with the naked eye anyway, and even then only if there's light from a nearby star. Space dogfights would rely even more on instrumentation then real-life aerial dogfights. And the HWK-290's design would probably keep the cockpit safer from attack.