"Star Wars' Ships Have Terrible Aerodynamic Designs" Topic

"When you're flying around in space, where there's no air or wind resistance, aerodynamics aren't important. That's why the Star Trek Borg ship is just a giant cube and still works just fine. But when ships are also visiting planets with atmospheres, aerodynamics do come into play—and apparently neither the Rebels nor the Empire in Star Wars know the first thing about properly designing flying vehicles.

YouTuber EC Henry brought 3D models of popular Star Wars ships into an application from Autodesk called Flow Design that can simulate and illustrate how a vehicle moves through various mediums, like the breathable air that seems to exist on most planets in a galaxy far, far away…"

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Amicalement
Armand

I don't think this is news to anyone, LOL.

Everyone say it with me: "Deflector screens."

So much for that.

You don't say!

Dan

It's not that it's news, it's the cool factor of actually seeing a star wars fighter in a wind tunnel.

Robert

Yeah, aerodynamics was the big scientific issue with Star Wars. And without these tests none of us would ever have surmised those ships were unaeodynamic.

Actually, I don't understand how some of them even function in a vacuum.

Actually, I don't understand how some of them even function in a vacuum.

Same as the screenwriters and directors? They ignore the fans?

They ignore the fans

Works when presented with wind tunnel experiments, too.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend!.

Amicalement
Armand

With enough thrust you can make a brick fly.

I've seen bricks fly.

Dan

I must admit that I was disappointed when TIE fighters and X-Wings started showing up in the atmosphere in Episode 7. If they could work well in an atmosphere, why weren't they used in the Battle of Hoth?

@Scott,

Just some nerd-theory here. But maybe it was because those types of fighters couldn't be adapted to severe cold like on Hoth. Or maybe those fighters could fly in that atmosphere but not at like attack or combat speeds.

In the case of the rebels maybe it was a limitation on resources or manpower required to adopt them to the cold. However in The Empire Strikes back we DO see X-Wings in the rebel hangers on Hoth, so we know that they are at least being flown through the atmosphere to get out into space. Plus we see Luke taking off in his X-Wing when he's leaving the surface of Hoth.

As far as the Empire not using TIE fighters in the Battle of Hoth, that's a question for which there really isn't a logical answer in terms of Star Wars lore. Maybe it was just a case of Lucas deciding they couldn't afford the expense or resources to add more models to those special effects shots so they just kept those scenes with the walkers and ground troops.

We have to remember that in the era before digital effects they were doing all this stuff with nothing but models on wires and camera trickery. I remember watching the Star Wars documentary and Lucas and his special effects team talking about what a logistical nightmare it was to put together the massive shots seen in Return of the Jedi during the Endor space battle. Hundreds of model ships, hundreds of camera passes that then had to be transposed over one another to blend it all together. And that didn't even count the fact that all the practical studio elements like lights, lamps, cameras, wires, etc. had to be taken out of the final renderings with manual techniques that took a lot of time.

Could very well be that adding TIE fighters to the scenes with the Imperial walkers was simply too complex for what they could achieve in 1978-1980. By 1981-1983 things had advanced to a point where they could kind of venture into doing bigger, more massive shots but there were still huge limitations in having to work with practical models, etc.

At least for TIE fighters they had an in-universe explanation.

The rebel base had an ‘energy field' that had to be opened for spacecraft to pass through.