E-wing escort starfighter

The E-wing is a type of single-pilot starfighter in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Developed by FreiTek Inc., it was the first fighter designed entirely under the support of the New Republic.

The Republic introduced the E-wing during Grand Admiral Thrawn's campaign to rebuild the fallen Empire. Built with cutting-edge weapons, shielding, and propulsion systems, the fighter is extremely powerful and well-rounded.

The spaceframe of the E-wing is surrounded by two aerodynamic foils which provide stability and provide increased weapons ability. The nosecone contains the starfighter's powerful sensors, while a concealed R7 astromech droid can easily be positioned midway through the craft. Directly in front of the R7 slot is the cockpit. Much of the great cost of the E-wing came from the use of the R7 droid, a much more sophisticated and expensive astromech than the classic R2 series.

This fighter had a relatively heavy weapons loadout of three lasers and one proton torpedo launcher with a magazine of sixteen torpedoes. Like most Rebel designs, the lasers were spread out and could be set to converge at varying distances. The torpedo loadout presumably consisted of anti-fighter proton torpedoes; no other fighter could carry so many.

The E-wing had some initial teething problems relating to the placement of the wing lasers near the outboard engines. The tibanna cooling gas tended to degrade at accelerated rates which swiftly rendered those guns near-useless (and cutting gun firepower to a third). Those problems were eventually resolved and the fighter entered fleet service. It is known to have served at least with the New Republic's Fifth Fleet as the primary fleet space superiority fighter.

Four major models appeared to have been designed; the last (Series IV) was introduced around the time of the capture of Coruscant by the Yuuzhan Vong. By that point in the war, the X-wing was rapidly equipping most squadrons in the massive military expansion; the more sophisticated E-Wing may have been limited to some elite squadrons.