Of Y-wings and their speed, or lack of

[Larz]

The 'faster' thing has to do with the acceleration and manuverability. An A-wing is 'faster' because it can accelerate faster than an X-wing or Y-Wing. Just as a Y-wing is 'slower' because it accelerates slower and has less manuverability. Speed is a relative thing in space. As for game references, games need top speeds because it makes it easier to program a space fighter to behave like a car rather than trying to program it to behave like a space fighter.

[Currald]

Actually, it's because Imperial jammer distorts space. It's very, very powerful. Look it up if you don't believe me.

It "distorts space?" So does a fat man. I could understand how radar jamming (or the SW equivilent) could force fighter pilots to voluntarily slow down, but this? You tell me to look it up, but where? I've read many a Star Wars book in my day, and I don't remember anything about Imperial jammers that distort space such that ships in the vicinity are physically slowed.
My point about the MGLT chart points to, I think, a larger issue of canonicty. Is there on-screen evidence of Y-Wings flying slower than X-Wings? I wouldn't deny that the preponderance of EU evidence states that Y-Wings must accelerate more slowly than X-Wings (as C is the only speed limit in space, no matter WHAT galaxy you're in!). But I suspect that this is contradicted in the canon.

[greenmm]

I think that Red Leader mentions a "distortion field" in ANH, but I don't think that it's a field that distorts the space-time fabric, for 2 reasons:

1) We don't see the pilots and their fighters "shimmer" as they pass through the field, due to having the matter that they were composed of being "distorted" by the field. Not to mention that the fighters would have to generate a counter-field to protect the pilots and their fighters from being "distorted", as I would imagine it's not very pleasant, if not downright painful, to have one's molecules distorted.

2) There's no visible distortion in the visual depiction of the DS1, both when the fighters are approaching it and when the MF approaches it earlier in the show. I would think that any distortion of the actual fabric of space-time would have some sort of funky visual effect, something to make the twinkling of stars due to atmospheric distortion look like a crystal-smooth pond surface. At a minimum, visible light waves would be doing some funky dance steps passing through a field that distorted space.

It's more likely that the distortion field was either the DS1's standard deflector shield (although I think it highly unlikely, as most other SW shields are apparantly hull-conformal, and the larger the shield area the more energy output required to maintain shield strength), or was the range of the DS1's onboard EW/ECM systems (which is more likely, as even with the Rebels sending a "handful of snub fighters" against the DS1, the Empire's troops appear to be too well-disciplined not to follow SOP during a Rebel attack, which would include activating ECM/EW systems).

Obviously, when you're relying on more than just visual sighting for navigation, and your nav and targeting sensors are being jammed so heavily that their range is drastically reduced from normal, even when you "accelerate to attack speed", you're going to most likely reduce your speed to the point that you can still get some good out of your sensors. Take lightspeed sensors, for example: if you have an effective range of 1 light-second on your lightspeed sensors, and your current speed is .20c, your sensors will only give you a 5-second warning of anything in front of you, and you'll probably want to back your speed down quite a bit; it's the equivelent of flying an F-15 at top speed (IIRC, about 1450 mph) when the nose radar can only see 2 miles in front of you. Back it back down to about .02c, and you've upped your warning time to 50 seconds.

[paladin]

I thought MGLT was a rating combining acceleration/maneuverability however ... considering that there's no top speed in space.

Acutal there is its called C for speed of light

Is MGLT short for anything?

[Stormbringer]

I thought MGLT was a rating combining acceleration/maneuverability however ... considering that there's no top speed in space.

Acutal there is its called C for speed of light

Is MGLT short for anything?

It's made up bullshit as far as anyone can tell.

[Sardaukar]

I'll submit a question to starwars.com's Ask The Jedi Council, re. MGLT. I suggest that perhaps we ALL ask what MGLT means, might increase the chances of it being answered.

[ClaysGhost]

Actually, it's because Imperial jammer distorts space. It's very, very powerful. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Distorting space would affect acceleration, rather than top speed, wouldn't it? Also, the power requirements for preventing a 2 tonne rebel fighter from accelerating at 1000g would exceed 10^51 Watts.

I would think that the Y-wing could not be much more sluggish than an X-wing, if a combined fleet of Y-wings and X-wings is supposed to accelerate at a few thousand g for the trip around Yavin to the DS. The Y-wings were not noticeably behind.

How did you come to those numbers?

It takes something with the mass-energy of Earth (5.4x10^41 J) to generate a gravitational field of ~10 m/s/s at a distance of ~6.4x10^6 m from the centre of mass. We require a gravitational field to prevent a starfighter accelerating, so I use the alleged order-of-magnitude for SW fighter accelerations. Most of the trouble comes not from the acceleration but from the weakness of the gravitational field - distorting spacetime is very energy-intensive.

X- Y- Wing fleet was in FORMATION for the trip from Yavin to the DS, remember that they took off separetly, in the next scene, they are already in formation, so they must have formed up in orbit.

I've been show n figures that assert that SW starfighters can accelerate at thousands of g, and that they were going at a fair old rate from Yavin's moon to the DS - I use them to minimise needless "trouble", although as I said it's mainly the weakness of the gravitational force that causes the huge energy requirement. That they were in formation indicates that the Y-wings are not as sluggish as supposed (and as the visual evidence would indicate). I leave the validity of those accelerations up to others to decide.

[Warspite]

OK, I see your point.

[Warspite]

But, you can't define a measure of the Y-Wing's maneuvrability or aceleration based solely on the Yavin-DS jorney... It's like measuring a fighters dogfighting ability by it's performance from take-off to patrol station.


Also, I got thinking... What if, there wasn't any space-time distortion, but there was a jamming on physical objects, created by some sort of tractor beams on the trench?
The fighters weren't affected above the surface of the DS, where the dogfights occurred, and the jamming was only refered to the trench.
In my view, it would be much more easier (read, efficient) than distort space-time. Besides, we never saw any light refraction phenomena on the trench, indicating a distortion filed.

[Connor MacLeod]

According to the ILM chart, they seem to be of potentially the same speed/acceleration values. The Y-wings seem to have been intended primarily as the attack bombers all along, though, if I remember the Radio Drama at all.

X-wings are better designed for manuverability it would seem than the Y-wings, which supposedly have better targeting. Considering the difference in tasks - the Y-wing would be better suited for "Straight line" running than for the evasive manuvering that the X-wings could manage.

An explanation for the problems of B-wings being "slower" might be rationalized because the Y-wing is more modular - its not "just" a bomber, but its actually a multi-role fighter. ITs been used as a heavy fighter, a light bomber, a long range scout (the "longprobe" variant.) among other things. Itseems likely that given its modular nature, its loadout can change tremendously according to purposes. Bombers roles might dictate increased mass, and therefore lower overall acceleration/manuverability. One could consider ANH and ILM to be the "top" potential acceelration rate for the Y-wing, stripped down to its bare bones.

[greenmm]

I thought MGLT was a rating combining acceleration/maneuverability however ... considering that there's no top speed in space.

Acutal there is its called C for speed of light

Is MGLT short for anything?

It stands for "MeGaLighT", but it's a relative term used by ILM so that the special effects would look right. Technically, the higher your MGLT rating, the faster you can accelerate and/or the more maneuverable you are.

The problem, of course, is that those aren't necessarily the same thing. An F-16, for example, can not only accelerate to its top speed faster than an A-10, but also has a top speed in atmosphere superior to the A-10 (roughly 2.5 to 3 times faster at max altitude, IIRC). However, because modern-day fighters don't have inertial compensators, their ability to make tight turns is limited to how much acceleration their pilot can handle. Even worse, designing a fighter to take higher g's increases the structural weight and cost of the fighter, thus increasing the construction time needed to make it and reducing the amount you can order for a given amount of cash. So, while fighters can take more g's than their pilots can, it's not that much more. The problem, then, is that an A-10 pilot and an F-16 pilot are both limited to the same g-limitation... and since g-force experienced is proportional to the square of the velocity divided by the turning radius, a faster fighter has to have an even larger turning radius (about 4 to 9 times as big), which also increases the time needed to complete the turn.

In short, the ability to accelerate or decelerate has to do with a combination of engine power and how much acceleration the pilot can take, while the ability to dodge/weave/turn has to do with how fast you're currently going and how much acceleration the pilot can take.

So, for the A-Wing to have a higher MGLT rating than the X-Wing or Y-Wing, it can imply:
-- its inertial compensator allows it to have a higher thrust rating, thus allowing to reach speed X much faster than the other 2 fighters; or
-- its inertial compensator allows it to make much tighter turns than the other 2 fighters when all 3 are flying at the same speed, thus making it more agile and harder to hit; or
-- a combination of the two

From the movies (and the EU, as well), we know that the third option is probably the correct one... but we have no way of knowing how much of the difference in MGLT rating is attributable to increased thrust and how much is attributable to enhanced agility. It could be 10% thrust and 90% agility, 90% thrust and 10% agility, 40/60, 50/50, 30/70... who knows?

[ClaysGhost]

But, you can't define a measure of the Y-Wing's maneuvrability or aceleration based solely on the Yavin-DS jorney... It's like measuring a fighters dogfighting ability by it's performance from take-off to patrol station.

Eh? As far as I can see, that journey is the only film evidence for SW fighter accelerations of 1000s of g and high speeds. Going by their dogfighting ability in the same films, I'd say they could do about 10g accelerations!

Also, I got thinking... What if, there wasn't any space-time distortion, but there was a jamming on physical objects, created by some sort of tractor beams on the trench?
The fighters weren't affected above the surface of the DS, where the dogfights occurred, and the jamming was only refered to the trench.
In my view, it would be much more easier (read, efficient) than distort space-time. Besides, we never saw any light refraction phenomena on the trench, indicating a distortion filed.

Tractor beams? How would they work, except through distortion of space-time? It just abstracts the problem from "the power requirements are enormous" to "we don't know how tractor beam generators work". There is no optical distortion visible, correct, but as I understand it SW jamming distorts visible light to force battles at close range, and we don't see distorted ships in the films. Maybe it's all supposed to have been removed.

[Warspite]

[quote="ClaysGhost]Tractor beams? How would they work, except through distortion of space-time? It just abstracts the problem from "the power requirements are enormous" to "we don't know how tractor beam generators work". There is no optical distortion visible, correct, but as I understand it SW jamming distorts visible light to force battles at close range, and we don't see distorted ships in the films. Maybe it's all supposed to have been removed.[/quote]

We don't see any space-time distortion related to tractor beams (refer to when the Millenium Falcon was caught by the DS in Alderaan), neither when the Blockade Runner was caught at the beginning of ANH.
I'm not saying that there ARE tractor beams in the trench, but maybe (maybe) the jamming system is some sort of tractor FIELD (I don't like the word tractor, but it's the best for this time), that degrades a fighter's performance.
Oh, well...

[beyond hope]

I was always under the impression that the "slowness" of the Y-wing was referring to it's maneuverability, since the only thing limiting its speed would be the effects of relativity. You don't see Y-wings involved in the same sorts of fancy maneuvers as the X-wings during the Battle of Yavin.

[ClaysGhost]

I was always under the impression that the "slowness" of the Y-wing was referring to it's maneuverability, since the only thing limiting its speed would be the effects of relativity.

The quantity of reaction mass it carries limits the top speed as well.

You don't see Y-wings involved in the same sorts of fancy maneuvers as the X-wings during the Battle of Yavin.

Those manoeuvres were not as extreme as the straight-line acceleration apparently required to reach the DS from Yavin's moon in the time stated in the movie. I don't know precisely what the greatest visual acceleration pulled by one of those fighters was during the film, but it certainly wasn't within an order of magnitude of what the trip to the DS is supposed to require. The Y-wings must at least be able to accelerate at the rate demanded by that trip, even if the X-wings could accelerate at a greater rate out of formation.