Skip to main content

star wars - Where do TIE Fighters generate thrust?


TIE Fighters are an extremely recognizable part of the Star Wars universe, but there's something about them that bothers me.


Where do TIE Fighters generate their thrust?


Based on the way TIE Fighters move in the battlefield, you would think they operate similarly to most other Star Wars universe propulsion ships.
They have thrusters in the back to push the craft forward, yet they can move along an X and Y axis.
An example being whenever the Millennium Falcon or an X-Wing takes off after being docked or “parked”. They rise up vertically into the air, rotate around, and then blast off using the thrusters on the back of their ship.
These ships have obvious ion engines that display a bright glow where the thrust is coming from.
Imperial Cruisers use these glowing propultion systems, as seen here: enter image description here
However, in the same picture, you see some TIE Fighters heading towards the Cruiser.
They don't have any glowing propulsion spots.

Here is a better look at the back end of a TIE Fighter:
enter image description here
This part of the ship does not glow when it is flying around in space.
So, back to the original question: Where do TIE Fighters generate their thrust?


TIE stands for "Twin Ion Engine".
Ion Engines contain "no moving parts".
"All TIE series starfighters had two or more ion engine outlets..."



Answer



The little red spots on the TIEs in the first picture are the main engine outlets. They are clearer here:


enter image description here



The second picture doesn't show the engines well because the engines do not appear to be powered. The two pieces on the central cockpit ball that are the darkest appear to be in the correct position for the engines.


Although there were only two engine outlets, Wookieepedia's article on the SIE-TIE engine cites The Essential Guide to Warfare to say that the engine



utilized microparticle accelerators to agitate ionized gases to relativistic velocities, and featured independently articulated ion stream deflector manifolds for pinpoint maneuvering accuracy.



So that's how they maneuvered.


As for why the TIE engines look different than the engines on other starfighters like the X-Wing, the most likely reason is that the TIE fighter is considerably less massive than the X-Wing (the TIE design famously omitted shields and life support systems to reduce mass) and can therefore use smaller and fewer engines to achieve the same thrust and maneuverability.


It could also be that the X-Wing uses a "fusial thrust engine" rather than an ion engine like the TIE (on the other hand, the Y-Wing uses an "ion jet engine", but its engines look more like the X-Wing than the TIE fighter).


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...