TIE pilot



TIE pilots served the Imperial Navy by piloting the various TIE starfighters.

They represented the elite of the Imperial Navy, having undergone grueling physical and psychological conditioning to achieve their ranks. An elite corps, only 10 percent of TIE pilots successfully navigated the intense training and testing of the Imperial Navy. The rest were reassigned throughout the Navy as combat gunners, crewmen and other personnel. Drawing from the graduates of Imperial academies, the fleet conditioned their best prospects to be fanatically loyal to the Emperor and willing to sacrifice their lives to complete their assigned missions. To ingrain the concept of placing mission and Empire above self, TIE pilots' names were replaced with identification numbers (such as DS-61-2) and were subjected to continual reminders of their craft's lack of integrated life support system and combat deflector shields.

To a TIE pilot, the success of a mission eclipsed personal safety and even the safety of fellow wingmen. Imperial tactics and command-control procedures for TIE squadrons were based on the assumption that most of the pilots were new and inexperienced. They were not allowed to use a vehicle more than once. As a result they developed little or no attachment to a particular craft as their Rebel counterparts. This mindset helped to enforce the pilots' view of themselves as a part of the Imperial war machine. They regarded themselves as expendable and were trained to regard their vehicles as the most expressive instrument of the Galactic Empire. As a result, TIE pilots were loyal and willing to die for the Emperor. Their primary missions were to attack Rebel and pirate ships, defend space stations, convoys and planetary garrisons. They were also used to escort TIE Bombers on planetary assaults. Much of a TIE pilot's time was spent in a TIE cockpit on patrol duty.

At the height of the Galactic Empire, the Imperial Navy had countless Academy graduates and clones at its disposal. During the reign of the reborn clone Emperor, the Empire was forced to be conservative with the lives of the TIE pilots and unmanned TIE/D Fighters were used as support craft for living pilots.

Uniform and equipment
TIE pilots were equipped with black uniforms, a black helmet, and a life support chest piece with breather tubes to provide necessary gases.

The helmet design was reminiscent of stormtrooper armor, with a few notable distinctions. The shell was bulkier, possibly due to reinforced padding or internal pilot-to-ship communications equipment. Also, the face plate of the helmet could apparently be raised or lowered, revealing the pilot's face beneath when desired. Additional modifications enabled the pilot to survive in the cockpit's vacuum. Breather tubes extended from the helmet to the front of the chest plate, where controls for the suit's portable life support system were located. The actual supply of oxygen was built into the rectangular back plate of the armor.

Because the odds of surviving a crash were slim, TIE pilots were rarely equipped with emergency rations or supplies. Some carried a personal sidearm for reasons which may have been ceremonial.

Notable TIE pilots
Notable TIE pilots included Biggs Darklighter and Baron Soontir Fel of the 181st Imperial Fighter Group, who both defected to the Rebel Alliance. These men were Academy graduates and officers in the Pilot's Corps. The standard non-commissioned pilot and other NCOs were cloned from various templates.

Behind the scenes


In Star Wars Empire: Darklighter, Biggs is shown wearing TIE pilot gear with a feature the editors point out is not canon: a clear face plate sealing the helmet. Because the opaque face plate seals off the helmet, an additional clear face plate does not serve any logical purpose for the Empire's pilots but was added so that the artist could identify the characters and allow them to express facial emotions.