Star Wars: The Starfighter That Made Everyone Freak Out In That Ahsoka Trailer – The E-Wing Breakdown
The X-Wing is an iconic fighter, but it’s also aging, lets’s take a look at the E-Wing that the New Republic tried to replace it with.
The E-7 multi-role starfigher, sometimes known as the E-wing escort starfighter is notable for a few (no longer canonical) reasons. In the old Legends timeline, it was the first starfighter designed entirely under the support of the New Republic, and moreover, it was designed with the goal of replacing the iconic and formidable X-wing series starfighter.
The E-wing, on paper, was up to the task, however as many front-line squadron pliots would discover was that the craft was plagued with significant technical problems, ranging from malfunction issues with the wing-mounted laser cannons, to issues with the new R7 astromech units designed specifically for the E-wing.
However, the E-wing continued to stick around–at first because the powers-that-be wanted to push the new starfighter out as a symbol of what the New Republic could manage, and eventually because engineers finally got around to fixing the problems. On the surface, the fighter was designed with a much more aerodynamic frame. Its spaceframe was built with two foils for stability and increased weapon fields of fire.
The E-wing carried three Taim & Bak IX9 medium laser cannons, as well as a proton torpedo launcher with a magazine of six torpedos. But the pride and joy of the E-wing was supposed to be the state-of-the-art R7 series droid. These droids were capable of holding up to fifteen hyperspace jump coordinates in their astrogation buffers and were capable of surviving almost direct fire from ion cannons.
The E-wings however could not always make use of the droids, whose advanced brains had issues interfacing with the E-wing’s computers. Additionally, the E-wing’s lasers being placed next to their engines had a deleterious effect on the synthetic Tibanna gas used for lasers, which often cut firepower to a single laser instead of the three.
It’s a wonder that a ship with less firepower and more technical problems might have been seriously considered as a contender by the New Republic, but it just goes to show.
May the Force be with you.
