Written by Joshua Tyler | Published
Space sci-fi is many things, but it never gets more exciting than when it takes place in a tiny, fragile death dispenser. Starfighters are one of the best parts of space adventures, and while they probably wouldn’t be useful in real space combat, that doesn’t matter when it comes to enjoying good storytelling.
Just because it may not work doesn’t mean they have to be unrealistic. The best starfighters use real space physics to deal death and destruction.
If you were a space athlete and going into battle, what would be your flight of choice? We are about to answer this question.
These are the best sci-fi stars.
5. SA-43 Hammer in Space: Above and Beyond
Space: above and beyond It was developed specifically as a series about fighter pilots in space, so they had to prepare their fighter planes properly. They did, and the result was the SA-43 Hammerhead.
The ’90s special effects weren’t up to the challenge of bringing the ship to life, but the design is undeniably cool. Hammerhead’s design blends the aesthetic of real-world, modern combat vehicles with the less aerodynamically limited environment of space. It’s beautiful.
Capable of flying in a vacuum and a planet’s atmosphere, the Hammerhead isn’t as realistic as some of the fighter jet designs on this list, but it’s realistic enough. In space, the ship often swoops and spins like a jet in the atmosphere, though it is maneuvered using small thrusters that help it spin and spin.
Each hammerhead carries two cannons mounted on two rotating axes. So, if a fighter comes from behind you, move your guns back and fire backwards.
One of the most unique features of the ship is the way it is launched and docked in space. The cockpit detaches from the ship and pops up in a pressurized hanger compartment on the mothership. When the pilot wants to launch, he enters the cockpit and is lowered and reattached to his hammerhead frame.
In addition to the CGI version of the ship, Space: above and beyond The team also built full-scale models at an air force base in Australia. These full-sized models were eventually shipped to the United States, and the unproven legend about them is that a Russian soldier spotted them and took photographs of them, believing them to be a new type of American tactical fighter. If he was so realistic that he could fool Russian spies, then Hammerhead belongs on this list.
4. T-65 X-Wing in Star Wars
There are many variations of the X-Wing used in Star Wars, but none have surpassed the T-65 used in the original Death Star trench manned by Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles.
Unlike most of the other sci-fi fighters you’ll see on this list, there’s nothing realistic about the X-Wing. The same is true for every ship in Star Wars. They ignore Newtonian physics in favor of banking and walk around like World War II fighters hurtling through the atmosphere. This is not a shame. It’s a deliberate choice made by George Lucas to create as much excitement around starfighter dogfights as possible.
The standard Star Wars X-Wing is a multi-functional vehicle. They only seat one human, but most X-Wings also carry an astrobot to act as their navigator, and in case they need to make repairs on the fly. It is capable of space flight and aerial flight.
When not in combat, the X-Wing’s S-foils, short for strike foils or stabilization foils, usually remain closed. In this configuration, a star fighter is less lethal, but easier to fly, especially in the atmosphere. When in battle, the S-foils are locked in attack mode, creating the X shape that gives the ship its name.
X-Wings are one of the few types of starfighters capable of traveling through hyperspace on their own. It also features heavy armor, four laser cannons, and two proton torpedo launchers.
Star Wars is full of amazing fighter designs, but the X-Wing is the best in the series. It’s so good that it’s worth ignoring Lucas’ choice to skew the ship’s design more toward fantasy than science.
3. Gunstar In the last starfighter
The last starfighter As one of the first films to make significant use of computer-generated animation, it is considered an underappreciated 1980s gem and a pioneering landmark in special effects. Unfortunately, even with all the Cray supercomputers used to render it, the computer animation doesn’t hold up and isn’t very good. For this reason, modern viewers may not have noticed just how cool the film’s hero’s ship, the Gunstar, is.
It’s one of the best starfighter designs ever conceived, and if you’re having a hard time figuring out why based on this image, take a look at the concept art render in the video included in this article.
Not only do the weapon stars look good, they are incredibly realistic. They take full advantage of real space physics and operate the way a spacecraft should. They are also armed to the teeth with extremely powerful basic weapons and a special secret weapon called Death Blossom, which blasts everything they have at the enemy at once. .
Of course, using the Death Blossom comes at a cost: you run out of weapons, and your ship is left dead in space. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be fun.
It is worth noting that in The last starfighterthe term “Starfighter” actually refers to the Gunstar’s gunners, not the ship itself. Now, we think of “starfighters” as spaceships, thanks in large part to… The last starfighterAlthough that’s not what the movie intended.
2. Colonial Viper In Battlestar Galactica ’04
2004 Battlestar Galactica The reboot series is about a lot of things, but it’s mainly about what happens aboard a carrier transporting starfighters as they try to escape the Cylons. This means that the audience spends a lot of time on the show’s fighters, so we’re lucky that they did a great job of making them great.
The starfighters you see the colonists using BSG They are called snakes, and there are two different types. When Battlestar Pegasus shows up, later in the show, they add a shiny new Viper Mark VII.
The Starfighter you probably associate most with the name is the Viper Mark II, the type of craft kept aboard the older and about to be decommissioned Battlestar Galactica when the Cylons attack. The Viper Mark II is old and outdated, but capable of serving the Colonial Fleet well as they fight their way to Earth.
BSG It has the best fighter launch system in science fiction. It’s very exciting and very practical if you’re an airline looking to quickly launch its fighters. The Vipers are pushed down a tube and ejected from the Battlestar at high speed, giving them a chance to exit the ship without being blown up if it is currently under heavy fire.
The landing is a little more traditional. The Vipers fly in and land in one of the landing pods of the Battlestar mothership, where they are later reloaded into the ship’s launch tubes.
Vipers are also some of the most realistic fighter planes ever used in science fiction. They operate according to real space physics, with the ability to use maneuvering aircraft to turn 180 degrees and head backwards while continuing to move in the same direction. Taking full advantage of realistic space physics in some way, is something all the ships on this list have in common, with the exception of those in Star Wars.
1. Starfury In Babylon 5
Babylon 5 It is the greatest science fiction franchise overlooked by modern viewers. It was pushed out of its current relevance by the show’s computer-generated space battles in the early 1990s. This is a shame because among all those CGI are some of the best spacecraft designs in all of science fiction.
Better than Babylon 5 The ships are undoubtedly Starfury. Starfury has been the standard of Earth power for decades. It is the ship that Geoffrey Sinclair piloted to certain doom in the Battle of the Line. It’s the Babylon 5 ship that was originally set up, complete with that cool launch sequence, distributing Starfurys, like a station launching infinite death into the universe. Starfurys may be the most realistic starfighter on this list, and the deadliest too.
Babylon 5 The starfighter was co-designed by Ron Thornton and Steve Borg. Their goal from the beginning was to use the ship as a way to showcase how Newtonian physics can be portrayed in space combat. It is something that cannot be done using practical models. It could only happen in CGI, and they wanted to take full advantage of being the first to use it in a TV show.
Newtonian physics gives Starfurys a huge advantage over less realistic starfighters. You wouldn’t want to try to take on Starfury in a slow X-Wing. The Starfury uses jets for maneuvering and also its four powerful engines, which allow it maneuverability unmatched by any other sci-fi ship.
Fly behind Starfeury, and you may find yourself in front of him instead. You’ll only have a millisecond to look your executioner in the eye after a starfighter pilot uses space physics to spin his ship around 180 degrees and blast you in the face with the Starfury’s four forward-facing pulse cannons. All while maintaining its original speed and trajectory.
Starfury is a ship specially designed for battle in space. They cannot enter the atmosphere, because that is not what they are designed to do. It also cannot create its own jump point, although the ship can use pre-existing jump portals to enter and travel through hyperspace.
Starfurys are often in battle and get blown up a lot, so a mechanism was designed that allows pilots to get out of them quickly. Press the panic button, and the entire cockpit will pop out of the engine assembly and float into space.
Later in the show, Babylon 5 Adds a new type of starfighter to his arsenal. They are a version of Starfury called Thunderbolts and are easily distinguished from older models by their long noses.
Lightning bolts are designed to fly in the atmosphere and in space as well, so I think they have some advantages in that sense. However, the original Starfury’s unobstructed view and better turning radius will likely make him my favorite starfighter.
Babylon 5 Starfury is the best sci-fi star fighter. Beat it if you can.