TIE fighter

In the fictional universe of the film saga Star Wars, TIE fighters (pronounced “tai fighters”) are starfighters with one or two crew members that are characterized by be small, fast and maneuverable. With a spherical central hull and two large side solar panels, the TIE fighter has over time become a very popular classic among science fiction spacecraft designs. On the other hand, both in the films of the saga and in the works of the expanded universe, other TIE fighter configurations have been developed.

Overview

The acronym “TIE” corresponds to the English term “twin ion engine” and literally means “double ion engine” (or “twin ion engine”). Indeed, the fighter is powered by two side engines located at the rear of its central spherical hull. In the corresponding scenes of the films of the saga, the engines of the ship are easily recognized by the emission of two points of pale red light. Each of those two points of light is the ion beam that each engine projects backwards to propel the fighter forward. The ion propellant jet comes from the fighter's fuel, shipped on board in a tank located just below the pilot's seat, in the lower part of the center sphere of the hull. From the moment the pilot starts the engines, the atoms of the fuel (consisting of radioactive gas) are sucked from the tank and taken to the side solar panels. There they are accelerated inside a circuit located in each side solar panel (the starboard panel feeds the right engine and the port panel feeds the left engine) until they are ionized in a constant flow enclosed in the circuit. Once well ionized (although this all happens in fractions of a second), the fuel atoms are brutally ejected by the two small rear ejection nacelles, thus propelling the space fighter to very high speeds and producing the characteristic "roaring" sound. » audible in the Star Wars movies. Naturally, since there is no sound in the vacuum of space, the characteristic roar of the TIE fighters is nothing more than an element of setting typical of the fantasy and freedom of representation that characterize the genre of space opera.

In Star Wars fiction, TIE fighters were designed and produced by a fictional company (Sienar Fleet Systems) for the Empire Galactic with the goal of having the ability at all times to rapidly deploy squadrons of space superiority fighters and thus exercise dominance in the Galaxy. To achieve this goal, they were designed to be rapidly mass-produced. When the Galactic Civil War broke out, the Imperial fighters were used massively to fight the ships of the Rebel Alliance. During that conflict the TIE fighters were basically flown by a single pilot, but some thirty years after the end of the Civil War, during the conflict depicted in episode VII (The Force Awakens) the fighters TIEs became the basic fighters of the First Order, spiritual heir to the Galactic Empire, and at least one of their TIE fighter models was a two-seater (the TIE/sf).

The basic characteristics of a TIE fighter are based on two requirements: on the one hand, efficiency in space combat (with good capabilities in terms of speed, maneuverability, and weapons) and, on the other hand, a low production cost, so that the This apparatus can be easily mass-produced, in the gigantic amounts of troops required, and thus be present in the theaters of an entire galaxy. It is for this reason (lowering costs) that TIE fighters suffer from four major defects that other types of space fighters do not:

• TIE fighters do not have hyper-impulsive engines, i.e. they cannot jump to hyperspace and thus travel to the speed of light. In order to be deployed in the theatre of operations they are transported to terrestrial or space bases or, in most cases, they are deployed from the hangars of large space cruises such as star destroyers, endowed with hyperimpulsors capable of interstellar travel. Stellar destroyers work as a mother ship for all the smaller ships that transport in their hangars.
• TIE fighters have no ejectable seats with life support systems that allow the pilot or crew to survive in the space vacuum. This decision not only encompasses the costs of production but is part of the totalitarian dictatorship policy of the Galactic Empire, in which the mission attributed to the combatants is more valuable than the lives of the combatants themselves.
• TIE fighters do not have pressurized cabins with internal atmosphere and artificial gravity system (at least not those that were conceived and manufactured by the Empire during the Civil War). In the absence of air in the cabin the crew of a TIE fighter uses a space suit that integrates a respiratory mask with which to breathe. The helmet and the space suit constitute the uniform of the pilot or the sailor and both in the Empire and in the New Order are black.
• TIE fighters do not have deflector shields that protect the apparatus and its crew from the impact of enemy weapons. Once again, the principle of giving the primacy to cover the costs is applied here, above the personal safety of the fighters.

This configuration of factors means that, on the one hand, the TIE fighter is undoubtedly one of the fastest and most maneuverable fighters in the galaxy, which is why it is greatly feared by its enemies, but on the other hand, its fragility makes TIE pilots are among the pilots with the shortest life expectancy. Thus, the main strategy of the Empire is numerical supremacy: it does not matter how many ships are destroyed or how many pilots are lost if the main objective is achieved. TIE attacks are made up of hundreds of these ships, a fact that is facilitated by their rapid production: for every TIE destroyed in combat, thousands more will be built.

The standard TIE fighter ("ln" model, during the Galactic Civil War) is armed with two SFS L S-1 laser cannons. These laser weapons, of extraordinary power and rate of fire, produce a characteristic hiss when fired. The manufacture of these ships is modular: the cabin and the wings are manufactured separately, and they are assembled in another factory. This factor also greatly lowers the final price of the ship and makes serial production extremely fast.^{[citation needed]}

Variety of models and operational history

The basic shape of early TIE fighter models is a central sphere for the ship's hull, with two side hexagonal solar panels. Models of this type are seen throughout the classic trilogy (episodes IV, V and VI). Prior to the Battle of Yavin the Empire developed a prototype with deflector shields, internal atmosphere and hyperdrive, the TIE Advanced X-1, but it was not mass produced and the only existing prototype became Lord Darth Vader's personal fighter, the right arm of the emperor during the Civil War. In episode IV of the saga, Darth Vader piloted this fighter and survived thanks to the particular solidity of the ship, and also thanks to its hyperdrive, which after escaping from it allowed him to make a hyperspace jump and thus reach an Imperial star system..

Also prior to the battle of Yavin, Sienar Fleet Systems developed other types of TIE vehicles, not always intended for space fighters. For example, for the boarding of the Tantive IV (Princess Leia's consular ship, a Corellian corvette) Lord Vader and his troops used a TIE boarding ship (model designation: "TIE/br")., a type of TIE used to penetrate the hull of captured spacecraft and board troops inside. The ship was designed by Joe Johnston for that sequence of episode IV, but it was decided to shoot the scene showing only the arrival of the imperial troops from inside the Tantive IV and finally this type of TIE never appeared in screen. The graphic design of the vehicle is preserved in the Lucasfilm archives, and an illustration depicting it is present in the ship plan books of celebrated illustrators Hans Jenssen and Richard Chasemore. In the Spanish translation of his first book on Star Wars vehicles (Star Wars: Sectional views of vehicles and ships, Editions B, 1999), the TIE boarding is called a "TIE boarding fighter", despite not being a fighter. The original English term is TIE boarding craft (“TIE boarding craft”). The boarding craft, with inward-tilting solar panels, is made up of a double cylindrical fuselage. In the forward part of the starboard fuselage is the cockpit while the boarding troops are housed in the rest of the ship.

The TIE shuttle (or shuttle) and TIE bomber have the same configuration as the TIE boarding craft: double hull and inward-sloping wings. Both appear in episode V and seen from the outside, with the naked eye, they only differ in that the bomber has an external container for free-fall bombs, naturally absent in the TIE shuttle, which is armed with a single laser cannon. Of the two parallel fuselages of the TIE bomber, it is also the starboard one that houses the pilot (the bomber is a single-seater) and the port one houses missiles and torpedoes, including the aforementioned external bomb container in its ventral part. A squadron of TIE bombers was used by the Empire in Episode V of the saga, after the Battle of Hoth, to harass the Millennium Falcon outlaws and force them out of hiding, a system of tunnels located inside a gigantic asteroid. For its part, the TIE shuttle is visible in episode V very fleetingly in the short duration of the shot in which the vehicle descends from the ventral hangar of the star destroyer Avenger to transport Captain Lorth Needa aboard the Super Destroyer Executor, personal ship of Lord Darth Vader and flagship of the Imperial Navy.

Shortly after the Battle of Yavin, in addition to the TIE Shuttle and TIE Bomber, the Empire also commissioned a version of TIE Interceptor: the TIE Interceptor. It is the fastest, most maneuverable and best armed TIE model in the Galactic Empire. The four ends of its tilted solar panels are each armed with a laser cannon, while the standard TIE fighter only has two laser cannons that fire from the center hull. Some TIE interceptor squadrons participated in the Battle of Endor (the final battle in Episode VI) and also in some later battles (mentioned in Expanded Universe works), though all of them still during the period the Rebel Alliance was in. eradicating the remnants of the Empire.

In the post-Empire period, and from what can be seen both in Episode VII of the saga and related literature, there are two new improved variants of this device. Firstly the TIE/fo, an improved version of the TIE/ln (the latter was the standard TIE fighter from the classic trilogy). The TIE/fo is equipped with deflector shields and a more powerful power generation system. On the other hand, the First Order has also been equipped with a further improved version, the TIE/sf fighter, for special operations. It is a two-seater aircraft with ejection seats and a pressurized cabin, more powerful and equipped with defensive weapons: in addition to the frontal weapons located on a fixed mount (two laser cannons of the L-s9.6 model, manufactured by Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems)., the TIE/sf also has a ventral turret capable of firing forwards or backwards, although its main function is to protect the fighter from enemy aircraft that attack it from its tail. The turret comprises a pair of SJFS Lb-14 laser cannons as well as a fragmentation torpedo launcher. While the pilot can operate all onboard weapons, the tail gunner can only operate the turret.

TIE fighters in the expanded universe

Parallel to the development of the TIE fighter models present in the movies, the expanded universe of the saga (novels, role-playing games, video games, comics, etc.) has been developing other TIE fighter models. The first means of expression to mention TIE fighter models other than those visible in the films of the saga was role-playing games. In 1987 West End Games published the first Star Wars role-playing game. In it and in its supplements (since November 1987, with The Star Wars Sourcebook, a supplement known in Spanish as Star Wars: The Guide) the TIE fighter was identified standard for films with the model «ln» (TIE/ln) and mention was made of other models designated as «rc» (TIE/rc), «fc» (TIE/fc) and «gt» (TIE/gt), with different specialties attributed:

• The TIE/rc is a recognition version.
• The TIE/gt is intended for the bombing and, in the period of the classic trilogy (episodes IV, V and VI) is gradually being replaced by the TIE bomber.
• The TIE/fc is the model for the designation of whites located on the ground. The TIE/fc overflys combat zones on the ground of a planet and transmits data so that large imperial cruises in orbit can accurately bomb or canne the target.

In video games one of the models is the TIE Defender, present in the series of space simulators Star Wars: X-Wing, Star Wars: TIE Fighter and Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, and also in the strategy video game Star Wars: Rebellion. What differentiates it is its external shape, since its solar panels, typical of the TIE system, consist of three wings in the shape of a "Y". It has four laser cannons in addition to two ion cannons that serve to disable the target's electronic systems and thus be able to capture enemy ships without damaging or destroying them. It has a speed that easily matches or even exceeds that of the fastest ships of the Rebellion and even its other sisters in the Empire. Its maneuverability is unbeatable and it also has a hyperdrive. Its exceptional armor is combined with its high-powered deflector shield system, making it one of the most complete fighters in the expanded universe.

More variants of TIE fighters exist in the expanded universe, most of them used by the Empire. Many are just more maneuverable, faster, or more powerful versions of the standard TIE (the "ln" model), but one of those with the most distinctive capability is the TIE Phantom, the first of the TIE fighters with a device. of concealment.

In the video game series Star Wars: Battlefront there are models of TIE fighters that have proton torpedoes, such as the TIE/gt (described in the 1987 role-playing game) or the TIE bombers (visible in episode V).