Star ships speed in atmosphere

[need4spd]

It seems silly noted on the internet (and star wars books) the speeds of tie fighters & Millennium Falcon to be around .95 the speed of sound. Why is that? Obviously it's not thermal heating or stress. Could it be weak propulsion in the atmosphere?

I can see having a speed limit of around mach 1 over civilians due to noise.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Perhaps because most SW spaceships ar about as aerodynamic as bricks?

Also, while in atmosphere and not doing stuff like dogfighting, most SW ships are on repulsorlifts for moving, so maybe they can't do anything more than that while keeping the ship in the air.

[Khaat]

Repulsorlift systems are reactionless, so they don't need escape velocity to reach orbit/exit atmo (i.e., "it's fast enough to do the job"). Materials strength really doesn't seem to be the issue, perhaps it's just a self-imposed limit (design philosophy), or limit for stability?

I would have to imagine there are dedicated repulsorlift craft faster than the listed spacecraft top speeds. How fast were the podracers? Or snowspeeders?

(Podracers)"Capable of achieving speeds over 700 kilometers per hour..."
(Snowspeeders) "650 km/h, modified version: 1100 km/h, attack speed 570 km/h"

Except: "... matches the ship that blasted it's way out of Mos Eisley." and we did see the MF's main engines light up on its way off Hoth in ESB, as well.

[Lord Revan]

there might be a difference between "fly in atmo" and "blast straight into orbit" since when heading to orbit to orbit for beyond SW ships move way faster then mach 1 in episode 1 Amidala's starship went from ground level (aka the hangar) to what ever distance the blockade was in seconds (aka probably no more then 60 sec) and that's not the only example (FYI: it takes about 15 mins for a shuttle to reach orbit).

Most likely the speeds stated are not "this ship can't go any faster then this" but rather a limit for safety reasons to reduce the number of crashing due the pilot not being able to turn in time.

[Elheru Aran]

Most likely the speeds stated are not "this ship can't go any faster then this" but rather a limit for safety reasons to reduce the number of crashing due the pilot not being able to turn in time.

Also my thinking. Along the lines of that thread we had a while ago about air/space traffic control in Star Wars, it makes sense for there to be a certain standard across the galaxy along the lines of "commercial civilian repulsorlift vehicles shall be limited to no more than .95 Mach in motion" or some such. Obviously military, police, and perhaps government, vehicles wouldn't have such a limitation, which is why it strikes me as odd that TIE fighters may be limited to .95 as well. You can make a brick go however fast you want it to, you just have to put enough motive force into it.

Also, it's obvious that even civilian vehicles can go faster than that; they just have to have engines *besides* the repulsors. The Millennium Falcon can achieve orbit in less than a minute if it lights off its engines in atmosphere, and apart from any possible civilian regulations, there's nothing stopping that from being the case across the galaxy.

[Lord Revan]

With military craft it might have similar regulations, since even the empire doesn't want a TIE pilot to crash into a house full of civilians because the pilot didn't pull up in time, it's a waste of resources.

so ships probably have "fast lanes" to orbit where they can go all out and outside of those you'll have to go slower.

[Batman]

Also, we're talking about inhabited planets. Maybe dumping a fuckton of highly energetic rocket exhaust into the atmosphere when they don't have to isn't in their best interest.