The Rebel Alliance's X-wing starfighter was one of the most advanced fighters of its day when Luke Skywalker flew it to battle against the first Death Star. Many fighters have come along which are faster and more heavily armed, but the X-wing has been assured its place in history because of its role in that stunning Alliance victory.
Yet it's a miracle that the Alliance has the fighter at all. The T-65 X-wing was the last starfighter design produced by Incom Corporation before its seizure by the Empire. When the X-wing was in its final design stages, ISB (Imperial Intelligence Bureau) agents began to suspect that members of Incom's design staff might have sympathies for the Rebel Alliance. A Rebel commando team helped Incom's senior design staff to defect to the Alliance; the designers took with them all the plans and prototypes of the X-wing.
The X-wing takes its name from its pair of double-layered wings, deployed into the familiar X formation for combat. During normal sublight space flight, the double-layered wings closed, giving the fighter the appearance of having only two wings. Each wingtip has a high-powered Taim & Bak KX9 laser cannon. The four cannons can be fired simultaneously, in sequence, or in pairs.
A pair of Krupx MG7 proton-torpedo launchers are located midway up the spaceframe. Each carries a magazine of three torpedoes; those specialized weapons allowed the Alliance to destroy the Death Star. The battle station had thermal exhaust vents, unshielded against particle weapons such as proton torpedoes, meaning that a well-placed star could cause a chain reaction to destroy the Death Star.
The X-wing is a small single-man fighter. An R2 astromech, housed in a snug droid socket behind the pilot, handles in-flight operations, such as damage control, astrogation jumps, and flight performance adjustment.
The X-wing's controls are reminiscent of those of T-16 airspeeders and other common "sport" vehicles found on frontier worlds. Bush pilots train their reflexes on such vehicles and easily make the adjustment to the X-wing's familiar controls.
The X-wing is known for its durability, with a reinforced titanium-alloy hull and high-powered Chempat shield generators. It is a forgiving fighter and normally can take minor hits without a serious loss of performance. It has a full ejection system, and Alliance pilots have fully sealing suits and helmets.
Like the older Alliance Y-wing, X-wings have a hyperdrive for travel to other systems (the specific drive is an Incom GBk-585 unit). The R2 astromech unit can store up to ten sets of jump coordinates and handles all astrogation duties, because the X-wing lacks a navigation computer.
Incom Corporation T-65 X-wing StarFighter
- Class: Space superiority starfighter
- Manufacturer: Incom Starfighter systems.
- Crew: 1 pilot, 1 astromech droid.
- Hyperdrive: Yes
- Length: 15 meters.
- Speed: 100 MGLT
- Shield Rating: 50 STB
- Hull Rating: 20 RU
- Weapons: Quad medium laser cannons. Warhead payload of up to 6 proton torpedos.
