Star Wars: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Imperial TIE Fighter

For the most part you would think that the TIE Fighter, though not the sleekest thing to grace the silver screen, is reasonably streamlined. It’s certainly better than a flying brick.

Or not.

In 2018 a group of pop-culture detectives decided to put its aerodynamic efficiency to the test using the Autodesk Flow Design virtual wind tunnel software.

The result was abysmal. The TIE Fighter was found to have a drag coefficient of 0.98, a figure indeed only slightly better than that of the aforementioned chunk of masonry.

Of the other TIEs tested The TIE Striker performed the best with a 0.48, which is not bot bad, but still handily beaten by your average golf ball. To put these numbers into context, the Vietnam Era F-4E Phantom fighter aircraft scored a silky smooth 0.02.

It was argued that aerodynamic efficiency plays no role in space and that deflector shields can be used to create a sleeker flight profile, but in an atmosphere there is no denying that even for Star Wars technology physics is still a thing.

Which is why...