Star Wars "Uglies" (The Starfighters): Part 1 of 2

(image via: pinterest)
Today we will be looking at the type of Star Wars starfighter known as an "ugly". This doesn't mean they are ugly it just is the what they are called. This is because they are made out of scrap parts and often used by pirates.

Almost all uglies are made out of a combination of Republic and Empire starfighters. They usually weren't as useful as the average starfighter but there are a few exceptions. Not all of the uglies on this post are practical to use but they are all cool.

All starfighters in this post are either used by the rebel alliance or pirates and not the empire.

chir'daki

(image via: shapeways)

One of the best uglies, this awesome starfighter used the X-wing s-foils along with the cockpit of an Imperial TIE fighter. It was also equipped with a spinning mount. This allowed the S-foils to rotate around the TIE cockpit giving it the ability to fit in between small spaces. Chir'daki is actually Twi'lek for "deathseed". The interesting thing about this ugly is that it was actually manufactured and not just cobbled together with the starfighter parts. It was used by Twi'leks during the galactic civil war. This is my favorite ugly other than the deathraven which will be featured in part 2.

X-TIE

(image via: Star Wars Wiki
While the chir'daki was good in combat, the X-TIE was a great example of an ugly cobbled together with random parts. It was not very good in combat because it had less maneuverability than the X-wing or TIE fighter. It also had significantly less armament than the two. Nevertheless it was fairly popular among pirates.

A much improved version of the X-TIE was the X-ceptor. It still wasn't as useful as a standard fighter but it was much better than the X-TIE

TIE-Wing

(image via: Holocron Star wars Combine)
The TIE Wing was similar to the chir'daki and instead of having the wings of an X-wing it had the engines/frame of a Y-wing added onto a TIE fighter cockpit. This ugly was fairly agile but that didn't change the fact that the survival rate for pilots was extremely low in this ship. This is where it got it's nickname, "the DIE-wing".

Y-TIE

(image via: Star Wars Wiki)
The Y-TIE was an ugly with the wings and engines of a TIE-fighter along with the body of a Y-wing. It was actually a good ugly because it had better engines than the regular Y-wing. It was extremely durable taking many hits before going down. One of its other strengths was having shield which was one of the TIE fighters biggest failures.

Check out more uglies in part 2 coming soon. Thanks for reading and may the force be with you!