X-Wing Starfighter Explodes

Baby Go Boom

Simply too awesome not to post up.

TechRepublic

Back in February, I took a lot of crap from Star Wars fans when I questioned the usefulness of X-wing fighters’ x-wings. Well, if the travails of the Polecat Aerospace club–and the video of their grand scale x-wing flight experiment–are any reliable indication, my lack of confidence has been vindicated. In the real world, those wings sheer right off. (Found via SciFi Scanner.)

What you see here is perhaps the greatest model rocket project ever undertaken in the name of fanboy pseudoscience. (Found via SFSignal.) Polecat Aerospace built a 21-foot reproduction (about one-half scale) of an X-wing and designed it to fly–rocket style–with the aid of four M-class solid rocket engines. It even had radio-controlled pivot wings and dome-spinning R2-D2.

They probably should have tried an A-wing starfighter instead. At least it looks like it incorporates some form of blended-wing lifting body.

Build notes. (You know you want to.)

h/t Boing Boing.