In Star Wars: A New Hope we see the X-Wing fighters approaching the Death Star and they say something like, “Lock X-foils in attack position” and then the wings, which were together, separate into the familiar configuration. My question is, why have a variable configuration at all? Assuming that it wasn’t done just because it would look cool, what is the purpose of it?
Supposedly the wings were folded for atmospheric manuvering, and opened for maxim spread of gun pattern in battle.
Also, for some reason, in some of the games (the Jedi Starfighter series) a T-65 is faster with s-foils closed, but has better firepower and manuverability when they are open.Also makes landing better as the ‘wings’ are not as close to the groung when they are closed.
Though I thought it was strange in RotJ that they flew through the Death Star with them open.
False assumption. It was done solely because they look cool. Ascribing any other reason to it misses the point, and any “answer” to it is meaningless.
I think they actually stick out farther laterally when shuttered.
Count me in the “They did it 'cause it looked cool, all the rationalizations came afterward” group.
Possibly the wings-together formation is more aerodynamic for in-atmosphere flight, but since that’s immaterial in space, the wings can go to X-formation for wider firing range?
Don’t the wings have to be closed to go into hyperspace or to land?
Heat.
The inside of the wings have heat sinks to radiate into space the heat produced from charging and firing the lasers.
And they look cool.
The actual reason: Looks Cool
My made up reason: The heavy lasers of the x-wing generate a lot of heat so they need to be seperated.
I always assumed (yes I have a long-term assumption about this) that the slight separation of the engines produced by the open-foil configuration allowed for more torque and tighter moves. Since the engines are the only visible form of maneuverability, moving them out from the horizontal moment of inertia even slightly would add to the effect if you use them to maneuver.
Yeah, they look cool.
But they also allow extra maneuverability. It’s why Babylon 5 put a similar design on their fighters.
First of all, they’re S-foils, TYVM.
Secondly, I assume they fold back so the ship can land…AFAI can tell, the bottom “wings” extend further down than the body of the ship, which would make landing bloody impossible.
My vote is for Looks Cool Plus.
The plus is the added advantage that spheres, flat planes, and cylinders are easier to replicate for a movie production models, cheaper to produce, easier to clip innocuous wires and mountings to, easier to control reflections on, in addition to being easier to secrete hidden panels for stuffing explosives into, easier at least than the big sweeping curvy ships that were used in Episode 1.
You might infer from this that the Rebels found it easier to mass-produce parts for them as well. Why they’d want easy places to hook wires on, or places to stuff explosives in, is anybody’s guess.
OK, how do you guys explain the Y-Wing, which, in my estimation, neither looks cool, especially maneuverable, nor has this heat-radiation thing going on?
And WHY does Vader’s TIE fighter have angled “wings” when everybody elses’ TIEs all have straight wings? Hmmm?
And the Falcon? What’s up with that thing? Why put the driver’s seat way off to the side, and in such a position as it’s impossible to see anything out of one side of the window? I mean, how could Han Solo have maneuvered so tightly around in that asteroid field when he had such a gigantic blind-spot? Avionics? I’d buy that except he’s always looking out the damn front window instead of at his instruments.
In my old X-Wing manual, the manouevering thruster are along the edge of the S-foils so they are opened to allow greater maneuverability. I don’t know why the B-Wings had to do that whole swinging thing, though it looked cool too. I really would have loved one of those when I was a kid, the pilots pod swivilled when it was moved into an attack position 
Y-Wing: No idea. Maybe the Rebel Alliance uses whatever cast-off fighters it can get, even someone’s obsolete third-rate designs.
TIE fighter: Someone who’s more of a techie can explain the design, but I gather Vader’s ship was a newer/experimental model that showed up more frequently in the later movies; and then was further modifed by having the panels be pointy in the front.
the Falcon: His ship is supposed to be a light freighter, highly and illegally modified for smuggling runs. The design makes sense if it was originally supposed to be used as a tug pushing a cargo container in the front. It’s sort of like someone taking the cab of a semi-trailer truck and gearing up the transmission so it can do 150 mph.
According to Lucasarts and in the games, the Y-Wing is a bomber with an ion-cannon and lot’s of shields. It’s maneuverable, but only because it’s really slow.
And it is ‘meant’ to look a bit better but the rebels leave off the outer panels as they are always needing to repair the insides.
I think Vader’s ship was a modification of a ship in the TIE Fighter games, a TIE Advanced. It was shielded, had more guns and may have had its own Hyperdrive.
The later fighters in the movies were TIE Interceptors, they were unshielded and had four guns at the tip of each point. I loved that game, especially the mission where you are wingman to Vader himself. Throughout the battle, you’re told to channel your anger and use it, brilliant
It had to have it’s own hyperdrive, else Vader would have spent the second two movies in a slowly decaying orbit around Yavin.
And I always thought the Y-Wing looked cool. Fucking hated piloting it in the X-wing game, though.