Blue Flight

Blue Flight was the designation of two successive starfighter units serving aboard the cruiser Indomitable during the Black Fleet Crisis.

At the Battle of Doornik-319, the Blue Flight designation was used by a formation of E-wing escort starfighters from the 16th Fighter Squadron, commanded by Blue Leader, and tasked to provide cover for the six BTL-S8 K-wing assault starfighters of the 24th Bombardment Squadron's Red Flight.

After the debacle at Doornik-319, the starfighter forces aboard Indomitable were reorganised. At the subsequent Battle of ILC-905, the Blue Flight designation was used by a formation consisting of three K-wings from the restructured 24th Bombardment Squadron, and their strengthened snubfighter escort of six X-wings. The E-wings which provided cover for the downsized Red Flight now used callsigns such as Cover Four and Cover Eight.

During this engagement, the new Blue Flight was tasked to attack the Black Nine shipyard, a mission in which they sustained heavy losses without achieving any tangible result. Blue Three was destroyed by flak from the defending thrustships, while Blue Two was intercepted by a Yevethan fighter during the attack run. Blue One was the only K-wing from the unit to successfully complete an attack, but this was harmlessly on the spacedock's deflector shields. As well as the two downed K-wings, at least half of the flight's escorting X-wings were also destroyed in the engagement.

The shipyard was subsequently destroyed by their counterparts from Red Flight.

Behind the scenes

 * The novel Shield of Lies identifies Blue Flight as a unit of E-wings escorting the K-wings of Red Flight, and after describing the destruction of three of Red Flight's K-wings, adds the statement, "Blue Flight fared even worse&mdash;only one of the bombers made it back to the comparative safety of Indomitable ' s hangar bays." As no bomber unit called Blue Flight is mentioned previously in the novel, this sentence appears to mean that least four E-wings from Red Flight's escort unit were destroyed, and as a result, two more of the K-wings were also claimed by the Yevethan fighters, with only Red One returning to the cruiser.

Appearances

 * Shield of Lies
 * Tyrant's Test