Bad "science" lines.

[ulthar]

Eirik wrote:

> By spreading the
> wings, they placed the four guns into a wide rectangular kill
> box - making air-to-air gunnery easier.  Yeah, I'm a geek.  So?

Wouldn't you want the guns along the fuselage axis, as close to the pilot's line of sight, as possible? If the Tie fighter is smaller (and it appears to me to be), and the pilot of the X-Wing is lining up behing a Tie and shoots, the widespread guns seem to decrease liklihood of a hit.

Or, maybe it's because the Tie's fly so erratically, you create a 'box' that if they fly out of, they get hit.

(Today's Badmovies.org lesson: how to overthink gunnery in Star Wars).

[Mr Hockstatter]

I would assume the guns on the fuselage would work quite well, considering that's where just about every fighter since WWII has the guns placed.  Of course, guided missiles seem to work better yet.

Bottom line:  They look way cool out on the wingtips.

[DaveMunger]

I always figured the x-wings on an X-Wing were for gliding like a biplane if they have to ditch on Tattooene or something.

[Eirik]

"Don't you mean vacuum-to-vacuum gunnery?"

Nice catch.  Thanks.  (sigh)

[dean]

So what does this mean for the Naboo fighters? Maybe we should also discuss the aerodynamics of Jar Jar's ears.  I'd say numerous attempts at throwing him off a cliff would probably help us figure that one out!

["you in big doo-doo Jar Jar!'']

hmmm....

Maybe we better not open a can of worms on that one...

[raj]

Oooh, can I be the first to throw him off the cliff?

[raj]

Can't believe this one hasn't come up yet:
"I made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs."

[ulthar]

raj wrote:

> Can't believe this one hasn't come up yet:
> "I made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs."

What's wrong with this? I've read people complaining that a parsec is a distance when Han seems to be referring to time, but I've also read a very astute counter-arguement (sorry, I cannot remember the web site).  It goes like this:

The Millenium Falcon used hyper light speed drives which we might assume work by 'warping' space-time (there's the link between time and distance, btw).  So, if his ship can warp space-time to a smaller distance, he has achieved a faster run.  The idea is that he's bragging about how SHORT he made the distance to Kessel.

Seems reasonable to me.  But I don't know how far a stationary observer would see the distance to Kessel to be, so I don't know if 12 parsecs is really all that good.

[Fearless Freep]

I've also heard that in Star War mythos the "Kessel Run" goes through dangerous space (black holes and such) and that to make the run short required a lot of skill

I've also heard it explained that Han was just trying to BS the locals to close the deal

[ulthar]

Sorry, guys, I cannot resist.  Another "True Geek" story.  In my high school Physics class, the class was four or five guys and the ex-football coach teacher.  All of the problems we worked in class were made to involve throwing living things off of buildings or cliffs.  That dude knew how to make Physics fun and appealing to teen-age boys.

The Jar-Jar experiment is very, very doable.  I suggest the Indus River gorge, the largest single escarpment on the surface of the earth: 23,000 feet from top to bottom.  This will give him time to think about what he's done.

[AndyC]

That's the beauty of geekdom. Any idiot can find fault, but a true geek can not only spot the mistake, but think of any number of rational explanations for it.

Kind of reminds me of the old Marvel "No Prize." Encouraged the kids to not just spot the mistakes, but to eliminate them as well. Quite a labour-saver for the folks at Marvel who answered the mail.



Post Edited (04-08-05 12:15)

[trekgeezer]

I always had a problem with the X-Wings and Vipers not having any attitude control thrusters. They were shown banking and diving like airplanes. That don't work in space.

In Babylon 5 JMS based the design of the StarFuries on the X-Wing, but  the "wings" only served as a mount for the engines and thrusters. The four guns are mounted 2 above and 2 below cockpit mounted on the fuselage. They have the pilot in a standing position (supposedly you can handle the G-forces better that way).  Later they had a two person model called the Thunderbolt, which had wing extensions that could be flipped out for atmospheric flight and the crew sat in the cockpit.

The new BSG also addressed this, the Vipers can now be seen doing 180's using attitude thrusters. This makes a lot more sense than having to the ships bank and turn.  Ships in space can be a lot more maneuverable because they don't have to deal with that pesky atmosphere or gravity.

[AndyC]

Well, Star Wars and the old BSG were space opera. Adventure comes before scientific accuracy. They wanted aerial dogfights with lots of loud explosions, for dramatic purposes. I prefer to judge them by that standard.

Really, it can be argued that they're not even real science fiction at all. There's nothing about the basic story of Star Wars that wouldn't work in a more earthly setting. It's timeless material, wrapped in sci-fi trappings. Do it all with regular guns and swords, ships and planes, and it would work.

[raj]

I always thought he was referring to parsecs as time, not distance; sort of like using lightyears as a unit of time.  Haven't heard about this alternative explanation.

[Fearless Freep]

The new BSG also addressed this, the Vipers can now be seen doing 180's using attitude thrusters

Yet they can't mount a gyro-stabilizer of some sorta on a stupid camera