Rocket powered flying X-wing

A team of enthusiasts have build a rocket powered 21 foot X-wing. Really. Gizmodo have an interview with the team that have built this, along with pictures.

The X-wing has 4 solid fuel rockets, and the plan is to launch it, open the wings (they are motorised and controlled via a remote) and then deploy parachutes and recover the X-Wing once the burn is over.

Apart from this being a great achievement, purely from a construction point of view, the Star Wars fan within me is going mental over this.

The team who've built it have experience building other scaled rocket-powered craft, so there's every reason to hope that the X-wing will not only fly, but also make it back to ground successfully.

Who knows? Maybe some enterprising company will start producing these. How long can it be before we start seeing Star Wars craft competing in the Ansari X prize?

They plan the flight on the 10th October - here's looking forward to the X-Wing videos.

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x-wing, star wars, rockets, ansari x prize