Rapid erosion of X-wing surfaces in flight

[Darth Wong]

I just noticed something interesting in ANH (it's present in both the classic and digitally enhanced versions). When the X-wing fighters are in the Yavin hangar, their paint jobs are perfect. The red stripe along the fuselage is beautifuly, brilliantly red, on every fighter you can see.

Later, as the fighters circumnavigate Yavin, the paint job on a lot of the fighters looks like shit. Faded, worn down, large portions missing, etc. Anyway, I thought this was an interesting observation, of the sort that doesn't really change anything momentous but which is neat to file away in your brain somewhere.


Nice clean paint job.


All of the fighters appear to look like that.


And ... after a few minutes' flight time, the paint job is worn down.

There is no fantastic technical revelation here: it's just an interesting observation of the attention to detail.

[Havok]

Interesting. Do you have a copy of the original edition to see if the models show the same wear in space? I'd check mine, but I don't have a VCR any more.
I'm wondering if the CGI artists remember their battle damaged X-Wing toys and sub consciously worked that into the paint scheme or if the paint was worn down in the original prints?

[Junghalli]

The heat generated on escaping the atmosphere degrades the paint?

Must be annoying to repaint them after every mission.

[TithonusSyndrome]

The heat generated on escaping the atmosphere degrades the paint?

Must be annoying to repaint them after every mission.

To the point where I wonder if they would bother except where absolutely necessary. It's probably a low-priority task that astromech droids take care of if they are doing absolutely nothing else.

[Ender]

How clear is space around a jovian likely t be? Most of ours have rings/a halo, but they also have smaller moons. Given that the fighters hit .1 c, ablation from any haze would be expected.

[Vympel]

I've got the laser disc version of the original film on DVD (yes, I bought em) - come Friday hopefully I'll post some pics for comparison.

[Fire Fly]

The first picture looks like Luke's X-wing, given the R2's seemingly bluish appearance. It would probably be best to have a definitive comparison of one X-wing by comparing Luke's X-wing when it lands after the battle, assuming that it is his X-wing.

[Bounty]

In the second image of the parked X-wings, the leftmost fighter seems to have an eroded paint-job too.

[Kurgan]

Good call!

Another question to ask is what the heck happened to those helmets... you know, the ones that display the little blue decals... and suddenly turn into beat-up custom jobs once they're in space!

Or how suddenly all the fighters have the decals of Red 2...


(hooray for continuity!)

[Illuminatus Primus]

I wonder why they don't have shields up as they ascend through the atmosphere.

[Venator]

I wonder why they don't have shields up as they ascend through the atmosphere.

Saving them for combat? It wouldn't do to have the generators burnt out (or depleted by any measure) before the shooting started; if the only atmospheric damage was aesthetic, they might as well take off unshielded.

[Desdinova]

I think we're looking at different fighter craft. That first one looks like Red One, while the one shot in front of the last picture looks like Wedge's Red Two. I wish we had a closer-in version of that second picture.

Here's what wookiepedia has on Red One:



Here's their image of Red Two:

[MichaelFerrariF1]

I wonder why they don't have shields up as they ascend through the atmosphere.

I think the engines breathe air during atmospheric flight and ionize it to save fuel for space flight. The engines have intakes and the cones would compress the air like the cones on the Blackbird. Having shields up would cut off that air flow.

[Junghalli]

If as Ender suggest they can hit .1 c how much sense does an airbreathing engine make? .1 c is 30,000 km/s, the delta V required to escape from an Earthlike planet (11 km/s or so) is trivial by comparison. With an engine that efficient and capable of high thrust (as we see during the battles) doesn't an airbreathing engine just add unnecessary complexity? Especially if it requires the shields to be lowered, exposing the craft to extreme heat which would probably increase the required maintenance?

[Drooling Iguana]

The heat generated on escaping the atmosphere degrades the paint?

Must be annoying to repaint them after every mission.

They probably don't launch that quickly for every mission, but having a big giant "battlestation"* on its way to blow up your planet tends to put you into a hurry.

* The thing travelled halfway across the galaxy in less than a day. I wouldn't call that "stationary".

[Batman]

We know they can hit .9c and remain combat effective from the NJO. Regardless of what Stackpole claimed in the Rogue Squadron books, fuel consumption is effectively a nonconcern.
Not that I see any evidence for X-Wings actually having air intakes on their engines to begin with.
The front of the engines LOOK like they MIGHT be air intakes and that's it.
And I completely fail to notice any cones.

[Batman]

The heat generated on escaping the amtosphere degrades the paint?
Must be annoying to repaint them after every mission.

They probably don't launch that quickly for every mission, but having a big giant "battlestation"* on its way to blow up your planet tends to put you into a hurry.

While we admittedly tend to see rather hasty departures in the movies, ground to orbit in a minute or so doesn't seem to be all that unusual in Wars.
And if modern day combat aircraft are anything to go by, having to repaint the red stripes is NOTHING compared to the regular maintenance work you'll have to do anyway.

[MichaelFerrariF1]

If as Ender suggest they can hit .1 c how much sense does an airbreathing engine make? .1 c is 30,000 km/s, the delta V required to escape from an Earthlike planet (11 km/s or so) is trivial by comparison. With an engine that efficient and capable of high thrust (as we see during the battles) doesn't an airbreathing engine just add unnecessary complexity? Especially if it requires the shields to be lowered, exposing the craft to extreme heat which would probably increase the required maintenance?

I'm talking atmospheric flight only and at lower speeds, not combat speeds. I doubt they fight at .1 c in the atmosphere, anyway. They'd tend to hit the ground.

[Swindle1984]

The heat generated on escaping the amtosphere degrades the paint?
Must be annoying to repaint them after every mission.

They probably don't launch that quickly for every mission, but having a big giant "battlestation"* on its way to blow up your planet tends to put you into a hurry.

While we admittedly tend to see rather hasty departures in the movies, ground to orbit in a minute or so doesn't seem to be all that unusual in Wars.
And if modern day combat aircraft are anything to go by, having to repaint the red stripes is NOTHING compared to the regular maintenance work you'll have to do anyway.

Do we know what kind of maintenance Luke did to his X-Wing after it got hauled out of Dagobah's swamp, besides pulling a snake out of the engine?

[Havok]

Uh yeah, and with these atmospheric air powered engines, how exactly would X-wings fight in atmosphere as they are repeatedly shown to do in the EU if the shields didn't allow air through?

[Galvatron]

I know this violates SoD, but isn't it possible that the life-size mock-ups and the FX models simply have minute cosmetic differences just like their Millennium Falcon counterparts?

[Kurgan]

Not to mention the CG models inserted in 1997...

[MichaelFerrariF1]

Uh yeah, and with these atmospheric air powered engines, how exactly would X-wings fight in atmosphere as they are repeatedly shown to do in the EU if the shields didn't allow air through?

I'm talking atmospheric flight only and at lower speeds, not combat speeds.

[Sea Skimmer]

Uh yeah, and with these atmospheric air powered engines, how exactly would X-wings fight in atmosphere as they are repeatedly shown to do in the EU if the shields didn't allow air through?

How fast was it people calculated the X-wings had to accelerate at Yavin to reach the Death Star? Something like 1500 gravities if I recall right. With that kind of thrust available the increased drag area from a shield (depending on its shape and degree of hull conforming it might actually improve the drag coefficient) is not going to be a terribly big burden on performance.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Saxton indicated personally (if I remember correctly) and implied in the two ICS books that shields are indeed configured to reduce drag in atmospheric flight.