Y-wings are fictional Rebel Alliance and New Republic starfighters in the Star Wars universe. They appear in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in the Battle of the first Death Star, in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back when some rebel aircrafts fly in the space when the injured Luke Skywalker stares out in the space, then in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi during the second Battle of the second Death Star, as well as in the third new Clone Wars animated episode, and the Star Wars Expanded Universe's books, comics, and games. Hasbro has also released a large Y-wing bomber with a Y-wing pilot, and an R5 astromech unit.

Y-wings are described as durable but slow fighter-bombers. We first saw them in the first battle of the first Death Star, when Y-wings were tasked with destroying the Death Star at the Battle of Yavin. Rebel leaders thought these powerful aircrafts will attack the weakest point of the Death Star, while Luke Skywalker and the other X-wing pilots distract the attention of the defenders, and keep them busy. Dutch Vander was the Gold Leader who was assigned to a Y-wing, flying several campaigns for the Alliance with Gold Squadron. During the Battle of Yavin, he was one of the first groups who flew into the Death Star trench. Dutch Vander led the team followed by Gold Two and Gold Five, who formed a buffer for enemy fighters. It was a tactic, Y-wings had an extremely strong deflector shield, which could often protect the bomber from rear enemy fire. Gold Leader chose an extremely close formation for his pilots; the two men behind Vander had to protect the leader with their own "bodies", this is typical for the much faster TIE Fighters, but Gold Five believed this to be a mistake. As Gold leader was locking his target computer, Darth Vader destroyed the two rear Y-wings, and finally shot the lone Dutch Vander down, killing him instantly. Without the Y-wings the rebels had to change their tactics, sending the faster but weaker X-wings into the trench, suffering huge losses before Luke Skywalker managed to fire his two proton torpedoes that destroyed the Empire's battle station.

The Expanded Universe describes several Y-wing varieties, such as a one-seater version, a two-seater (one pilot, one gunner) variety, and the "Longprobe" reconnaissance ship. The Y-wing is a player-flyable aircraft in LucasArts' X-Wing, Battlefront II, and the Rogue Squadron series, and it appears in other LucasArts Star Wars titles such as Force Commander, Galactic Battlegrounds, and Empire at War. In Force Commander they cost 300 Command points, but they worth their money. They are very strong, just take a look at this screenshot, the shield is THREE TIMES MORE (!!) than the heath point of the bomber, you gotta shoot and destroy its shield to be able to start damaging the bomber itself, but keep in mind that the shield could be restored, so if the Ywing can hide somewhere, or can retreat a little bit, the astromech robot repairs the shield, which regenerates up to its maximum! they throw very destructive Proton torpedoes on top of all kinds of enemy units. As the game's black Y-wing pilot says in my favorite phrase, kicking the dust from my boots Sir, you can imagine how he shakes his legs to get rid of those pebbles. :-) Also, the Y-wing has a very powerful Ion cannon, which is its secondary fire. It can paralyze an AT-AT if the shot was successful. The imperial walker won't be able to move, or fight during the effect of the ion cannon, you can destroy the other units, gather under the walker with some infiltrators,. and after the effect is gone, infiltrate the walker, and here you go, you have an AT-AT. This is a strategy, which almost always works.


In Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds you can produce your Y-wings in the airbase. They are very good artillery combat units, very effective against buildings, walls, and power cores, but they are cool against other combat units, too. You'll be able to upgrade them twice, the initial small and weak light Y-wings can be upgraded to heavy enhanced Y-wing bombers. You can shield them, you can make them stronger, and more accurate, you can upgrade their bombs, and even can reduce their cost, and production time.

In Battlefront 2 Y-wings have a co-pilot, who can man the laser cannons. It can provide a further benefit, as in Force Commander and in Galactic Battlegrounds you can use only one-seater bombers, which could NOT protect themselves against enemy air-units, which meant you had to protect them with air support, fighters, or anti-air mobile or troopers. Now in BF2 you can decide which pilot you prefer. The front pilot drives the Y-wing, he decides where to go, and he drops the bombs, too. The co-pilot sits in the rear seat, and mans the Laser cannons, which can provide a minor attack potential against enemy fighters. With this, the Y-wing is a very formidable aircraft, a mix of a fighter and a bomber, therefore I always fly them when playing BF2. Its shields will provide bigger safety twice as strong as a simple fighter, and its proton bombs can destroy enemy frigates. If these proton bombs (in the screenshot) reach this Victory class Imperial frigate, it will explode, as it has only a small HP remaining, I have bombed it severely. In the meantime they hit my left engine, but that is not a big deal, my R5 astromech droid will repair that easily. Also, your pilot can repair minor damages from inside, but you gotta put a fusion cutter (instead the pistol) in his hand BEFORE you get in the Y-wing! Anyway, I could bomb the super turrets on the Star Destroyer, bombed down 3 turbo lasers on the Victory class frigate, and the frigate itself is also very weak, soon it detonates and the crew (approx. 30 person) will die inside, giving us a big lead. And you can even destroy the vital parts of a Star Destroyer, such as the engines, the bridge, the life support system, and many others.

Industrial Light & Magic's Colin Cantwell, who also designed the Saga's TIE fighters, initially designed the Y-wing with a large bubble turret for a gunner. However, the dome did not appear properly when filmed against blue screen, and subsequent designs excised the turret. But in the third episode of the Clone Wars animated film the idea of the two-seater Y-wing fortunately has returned. They created the ancestor of the Y-wing bomber, which was used by the Republic during the Clone Wars.

Spoiler alert! If you haven't seen the third episode of the Clone Wars 3D, and if you don't want to hear about the role of a Y-wing squadron from the movie, skip the purple part of the article. But come back under it, you can listen to some cool mp3 comments and reporting ins, and you can watch the custom Y-wing pilot figure!

A strike force, called Shadow Squadron had to attack the Malevolence, flag ship of General Grievous. Anakin Skywalker led the mission, his gunner was Ahsoka Tano in the bubble turret, the "fighter escort" was Master Plo Koon. They had to arrive in time to a space medical base, where injured clones were treated. Grievous and Dooku planned to attack and destroy the medical facility, to make large losses for the Republic. Anakin had to choose a short cut, he had to risk his squadron by flying through the dangerous "Balmorra Run", which was a smuggler route Hyperspace lane full of large animals, called Nebray mantas that were gigantic creatures that lived in the Nebula. The Shadow Squadron arrived safely, but suffered heavy losses in the space battle against Grievous' vulture droids, not to mention the Malevolence's dangerous ion-cannon, which paralyzed many of the Y-wings including Matchstick, and Tag, they were caught in the ray, almost making them an easy pray for the turbo lasers of the Malevolence, but they clashed into each other. The Y-wing squadron became victorious though, after destroying the ion weapons with their strong proton torpedoes. I like these new clone pilot helmet design, however these are not the original Force Commander Y-wing pilots I was writing about previously, I mentioned and portrayed them, as they are very cool, and were told to be the ancestors of the rebel Y-wings.

(You may think the figure has extremely large eyes watching the photo that was shot from the right, but he hasn't. The head was made from a Lando Calrissian head, so I needn't paint eyes, it had a perfect eye. The painted shining of the helmet visor can make you think the pilot has a large eye, but that is only a funny illusion J)