One thing that makes one realize that Star Wars is the outgrowth of the 1970s is in starfighter design. In modern air combat the single most important sensors in a dogfight are the Mk 1 Mod 0 eyeball and fighters are currently made with as little canopy structure as possible and as much rear and downward visibility as possible. In the late 1970s most fighters George Lucas's design teams would have had for reference had large amounts of structure blocking a pilot's view, i.e. the F-8, A-7, F-104, etc. even some Generation 4 aircraft (1970s-1990s) are guilty of this.

If you look at more modern starfighter designs (even from Lucasfilm in the abhorrent Prequels) you see less canopy structure and a design allowing the pilot a larger field of vision. I find it ironic that the Prequel films seem to have higher technology, but it's entire possible the Empire brought about a dark age and technology regression.

It could be that the Empire brought down technology or one of many things.
- For instance, more compact, more powerful yet more rough looking tech for the origonal movies, more elegant tech for the new ones.
- Lets not forget that Drones are considered moving targets with guns, they fly and fight via a combat program and any good pilot can anticipate the combat program's next move.
- The TIE fighters were built to be extremely cheap and very fast.

But as the look of tech goes, the Empire brought the look of tech down.

B-Wing for the win!
Always loved that little fighter...

cool.

the recon Xwing looks really cool nice one !! ',..,'

Thanks.

'Tandem' X-Wing? Twin hulled like a TIE-Bomber, or a twin-seat Trainer? :3

twin-seater.

Hot!

Nice, a real 'Rogue Squadron'. A unit like that, with all these 'craft would be interesting.

Very true.

Probably freak the Imps out, too.

Yep.

Thank you, my friend.

you can say whatever you want, but my personal favourite is and will always be the X-Wing, the fighter that killed the death star, along with its respective family. i loved that fighter from the start and i would pick it over anything

on a side note, the whole thing about canopies and stuff... who cares, honestly, if you have good enough sensors? if your computer can tell you just exactly where the enemy is, you can keep on dodging and moving around, etc... remember x-wing vs. tie fighter and x-wing alliance... all you needed was a clear vision to the front. the rest was taken care by your sensors and HUD. no need to turn your head which might leave you vulnerable

Dang right.

awesome