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  • BTL-A4 Y-Wing

  • The veteran of the Rebel Alliance

The movies

Star Wars - Episode IV
A New Hope

The BTL-A4 Y-wing -complete name- has a special place in the Star Wars saga. It appears for the first time in A New hope in 1977, at the same time as the X-Wing. And this is the worrying thing because it fails everything it attempts compared to its “little brother” X-Wing. The Death Star is approaching the Yavin moon where the rebels are hiding in their Massassi temples. They have only 30 minutes to destroy the imperial station before it blows them up.

Leia and her lovers fellows succeeded in bringing back the Death Star plans which should allow the rebels to do it but the only usefull information they get is the existence if an exhaust port on the surface. About thirty rebel fighters make their way to the imperial station including a dozen of Y-Wings. They are bombers, old but reliable. Their targeting system is more efficient than the X-Wings’ so they are expected to perform the bombing itself.

And the disaster occurs, they are all destroyed one after the other, too heavy, too slow facing the imperial Tie Fighters. As well known, the Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing ends the bombing operation and only one Y-Wing will survive and come back to Base One. In the further episodes, its role is not more highlighted. You can see one Y-Wing patroling near the medical Fregate at the end of the Empire strikes back. A few more are used during the battle of Endor, the Grey Squadron. They are usually busted… I chose to represant a member of the this squadron.

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X-Wing T65

Sullust

La maquette

BTL-A4 Y-Wing fighter
  • Model : : Y-Wing Fighter
  • Maker : : Finemolds
  • First edition year : : 2007
  • Scale : : 1/72
  • Matter :: Injected plastic

In the Star Wars saga, the BTL- Y-Wing alliance fighter serves as a stooge to cast a favorable light on the X-Wing. It is the loser of the story. Its clumsy design, its “visible guts” make it even more old and worn out. This thankless role seduced me and I absolutely wanted to have it in my personal collection. I chose to represant a Y-Wing from the Grey Squadron. I guess it’s Grey Leader but I’m not sure of the decoration pattern. The references on filming modeles from the Return of the Jedi are very rare.

Hundreds of gribblies

I won’t laud Finemolds again, if you want to know more about them, please read the “X-Wing fighter” article. As usual, their loving care for details is amazing. In particular, the “gribblies” covering the ship hull are very accurate.

This design is very interesting for a model maker, far from the smooth surfaces quite boring of many other models. The explanation is that rebel technicians got bored with removing hull panels again and again for maintenance and decided to throw them away.

The BTL-A4 Y-Wing fighter, a model made for light-up

The extended thrusters and other hull parts make the LED integration very easy. No complication at all. I chose a bright red to contrast with the purple used on the X-Wings. I always try to give each ship a “light signature”. Indeed, this model will be inserted in a huge rebel fleet diorama. It will be lost among dozens of rebel ships, it’s important you can distinguish it.

Inexplicably, Finemolds failed totally in making the steering foils at the rear of the ship as you can see in the first picture. So I had to re-scratch the parts using plastic card (second picture). It’s the only fail of this model. Compared with other manufacturers, it’s very few but it’s very surprising when you know the Finemolds standards.

Expositions

Like the A-Wing, the B-Wing and the X-Wing, this model has been showed during 5 conventions :

The rebel fighters collection is now complete in my Sullust diorama.

You may click here to see the rebel fleet diorama “Sullust”

by petersteven

Photos