Imagining the Next Generation of Star Wars’ B-Wing Fighters

Although the X-Wing is the most recognizable Rebel Alliance/Resistance craft in Star Wars, I’ve always had a soft spot for the B-Wing. Though its only movie appearance was in Return of the Jedi, there’s something about its ungainly and yet — because of its Mon Calamari origins — strangely organic appearance that continues to pique my curiosity. That, and its super-cool gyro-stabilized cockpit that maintained the pilot’s orientation even as the B-Wing rotated around them for different configurations.

Unfortunately for us B-Wing fans, the massive fighter — which was designed to destroy capital ships like Star Destroyers — hasn’t appeared in any of the new Star Wars films. Not in its entirety, anyway. But YouTuber EC Henry (he’s the one who did the warp speed comparison that I linked to last week) combined a tossed off reference in The Force Awakens Visual Dictionary with inspiration from historical real world aircraft (e.g., Douglas TBD Devastator, Horten Ho 229) to imagine what a B-Wing Mark 2 might look like.

In addition to creating a sweet new look for the Mark 2, he also imagines an entire history for it, from the evolution of its mission and its eventual removal from service (due to New Republic politics) to speculation about how it might still be flying around the Outer Rim. In other words, my kind of nerdery. Via