Azure Angel

The Azure Angel was a customized Delta-7 Aethersprite-class light interceptor starfighter that was modified and piloted by the Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker during the early months of the Clone Wars.

Characteristics
Even though Anakin Skywalker led an army in the Clone Wars as a Jedi General, he still had within him the boy who restored and rebuilt a junked Podracer and piloted it to victory. Although Azure Angel began its life as a standard Delta-7, Anakin, with his innate mechanical aptitude and being dissatisfied with the Delta-7's performance, made extensive mechanical and aerodynamic modifications to enhance the starfighter's performance in order to suit his own tastes for speed and control while in flight and in combat. Anakin gave his ship a paint scheme similar to that of his old podracer. This paint scheme was also later applied to the Blade of Dorin, which Anakin subsequently gifted to Jedi Master Plo Koon during the Malevolence crisis. Azure Angel was named out of Anakin's love for his secret wife, Galactic Republic Senator Padmé Amidala.

To enhance the ship's firepower, he armed it with four Taim & Bak laser cannons, mounting two on each wingtip, as well as a missile launcher installed in the center fuselage, which held a very high number of missiles. The laser cannons on each wingtip could fire either separately or simultaneously, and at such extreme angles off-axis that they could hit targets even as Anakin passed them.

The missiles could be launched in rapid succession; seven of them were fired within the span of seconds at the Battle of Muunilinst. Other modifications included an increase to engine power, articulated stabilizer foils and vectored thrusters for increased maneuverability within realspace and atmospheres, as well as a pair of TransGalMeg hyperdrive thrusters that provided hyperspace capability without having to utilize a hyperdrive ring.

History
Some Jedi were concerned that Skywalker regarded this fighter as a possession, and that it was a sign of his inability to let go of his past or to resist forming attachments. However, Jedi Master Saesee Tiin encouraged him to keep pushing the ship's limits, hoping to see that Anakin's improvements were incorporated into the next generation of Jedi starfighters.

The original Azure Angel was used up until the Battle of Muunilinst. After destroying numerous Geonosian fighters and a Separatist gun platform, Anakin encountered Asajj Ventress, who dueled him using her Ginivex-class starfighter. When the Dark Jedi retreated, Anakin chased her to the jungle moon of Yavin 4, where she destroyed the Azure Angel after he had landed. Following this, Skywalker would go on to pilot several other starfighters, including a yellow Delta-7B, a red Delta-7, another blue Delta-7 named Azure Angel II, and a yellow Eta-2 Actis.

Behind the scenes
The name Azure Angel was created by Lucasfilm's "Keeper of the Holocron", Leland Chee based on the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels precision flight team. Other possible names were Cerulean Angel, Cobalt Angel, and Teal Angel.