Why would it have wings at all? When it's only used in space, and not both space and in the atmosphere, wings are useless except for enlarging the area where the fighter could get hit and making it harder to manoeuvre in tight spaces (like around other spacecraft). Weapons and engines could be kept closer to the fighter, manoeuvrability increased by placing small thrusters at the front and back of the fighter perpendicular to it.

I think the idea is that if the engine is hit there is a smaller chance the pilot is instantly offed.

I think if we ever managed to get the engines and power source small enough to make a fighter practical, it would be like an A-Wing.


Simple and to the point. However, I think long before we have fighters, we'll have capital ships. Nuclear tipped missiles for attack, lasers/kinetic weapons for defense, and probably a decent amount of armor and shielding to shrug off near misses from nuclear weapons. That's just a guess though.

The picture is not showing.

The thing what makes the x wing configuration preferable is that it can flip itself around in mid flight return fire while still moving where as the A wing would actually have to turn. The x wing would turn by firing one engine backwards and the other forwards causing a very quick change of direction.

There's nothing to stop small thrusters from existing all around the ship... that's how I would do it. Primary thrust would go back, but there's be thrusters all around so you could swing around however you want. To me, an X configuration wouldn't be so great because you couldn't change rotation too quickly or you risk too much load on a wing or something, since you're having to move all that mass on the end of a wing. A simple bullet or arrowhead shape would have all its mass centered and not have to worry about that. I suppose a sphere would work too....and you'd have the added bonus of being able to put weapons in any direction.

A-Wing: (hope this one works for you)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p04J5N_SEjA

This is what i had in mind, you can see it flip around at 0:20 seconds.

sure, but you don't have to have wings to do that. Small thrusters will do the same thing. The space shuttle does that, though not very aggressively.

Actually, wouldn't it make more sense to make space fighters into drones? You could have people fly them wirelessly from a mothership. Or make them completely autonomous. The problem is that in space, there's no atmosphere or anything, so you could accelerate, turn and twist as rapidly as you could want... except that the human body tends to not do so well under a heavy g-load. You'd have to make the ship turn slowly so you don't accidentally crush/break the squishy pilot. Immersing the pilot in a breathable fluid might work to a certain degree... a highly oxygenated liquid would help absorb the forces some. Still, best would be to just not have a pilot. Besides, that would save you space and weight to accommodate the pilot, his controls, and his life support systems.

lol, oh yea, right... drones bad, they'll just go sentient and nuke their former masters to oblivion. From orbit. Because it's the only way to be sure.