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Episodes IV, V and VI

Rebel Alliance - X-Wing Starfighter

One of the Rebel Alliance's most advanced fighters, this ship played and important role in the first major Rebel victory of the Galactic Civil War: The Battle Of Yavin and the destruction of the first Death Star. The T-65 X-Wing starfighter was the final design of its kind produced by Incom Corp, before the company was nationalised by the Empire. A Rebel commando team helped Incom's senior design staff defect to the Alliance with plans and prototypes of the X-Wing, a devastating loss for the Empire.

The X-Wing takes its name from its pair of double-layered wings, which are deployed into a familiar X-formation for combat and atmospheric flight. During normal sublight-speed and space flight, the wings are closed. Each wing tip has a high-powered laser cannon. A pair of proton torpedo launchers are located midway up the main space-frame, each with a magazine of three torpedoes. In the hands of Luke Skywalker, two of these torpedoes were enough to set off a chain-reaction explosion that destroyed the Death Star.

The X-Wing is a one-pilot fighter. An astromech droid housed in a snug droid socket behind the pilot handles many in-flight operations, such as damage control, astrogation jumps, and flight performance adjustment. Although the X-Wing has an impressive combat record, much of that is due to the skills of Alliance pilots, and that, in turn, is at least partly due to the fact that the X-Wing's controls are reminiscent of T-16 airspeeders and other common sport vehicles fount on frontier worlds. Bush pilots who have developed their reflexes on such vehicles easily make adjustment to the X-Wing's familiar controls.

The X-Wing is also known for its durability, with reinforced titanium alloy hull and high-powered shield generators. It can normally take minor hits without serious loss of performance, and has full ejection and life-support systems, which add flexibility to its lists of attributes.