Behold...

...the Y-Wing. Looks pretty cool, doesn't it? You're probably thinking to yourself right now: "Yeah, I could jump in that, head on out, let loose and really reduce the amount of tyranny in the galaxy". But don't be fooled, my friend. For the Y-Wing is a flying coffin. It no less than a space-going barn, one floating gently through space with the words 'Palpatine takes it up the arse' painted in 6 foot high letters along the side. It is the ship that Rebel pilots are probably almost certainly assigned to fly 3 days before retirement. Before we go on, let's just take a look at a typical shot of it in action:

Lately I've been playing X-Wing Alliance, and a jolly good game it is too; jolly good, and often jolly difficult. While the average mission in which you are allowed to fly a good ship can be pretty damned challenging, every so often some clearly sadistic operations controller decides it's time to send you out in the Y-Wing. The Y-Wing is just not good, Jeff. Just not good at all. Oh the not-goodness. I've decided I'd like to take some time here to try and put across to the world at large just what bad news it is when they tell you that it's time to take one of these puppies out into the universe.

I know some people who may be reading this may not have played a lot of flight sim games, a lot of Star Wars games, or even many computer games at all. So let's turn to the animal kingdom for some comparisons so perhaps you folks can better understand what I'm getting at. Broadly speaking, this is how the Y-Wing rates -

On speed:

On manouverability:

On firepower:

Perhaps something slightly more mechanical illustrates the point a bit better:

The X Wing:

The TIE Fighter:

The Y-Wing:

Note that I deliberately chose a picture of an Amish cart, and one that that did not feature a horse. A horse implies at least 1 unit of horsepower. And we all know the Amish are averse to any kind of modern technology. I'd imagine they'd be quite comfortable with the Y-Wing, which I'm pretty sure was originally designed to hunt dinosaurs. In fact, I imagine the Rebel briefing in Star Wars was probably going something like this:

So out you go, one of the unlucky few in the Y-Wings. Before long, you will inevitably run into the enemy. It won't take long at all for a situation like this to develop:

...only buffaloes are probably more spaceworthy than Y-Wings, and TIE fighters are more heavily armoured than your average canine...they're more like this:

They won't actually bother blowing you away immediately though, not when there's so much fun to be had circling round and round you like mocking wasps, making jubilant throat-cutting motions at you through their canopy as you attempt futilely to manouver out of harm's way. In a Y-Wing, this is a lot like sitting in a metal bathtub that is afloat in a swimming pool full of custard, and attempting to bring it about using a manilla folder as a paddle. You can try fighting back, but generally speaking you'd pose a bigger threat to them if you were piloting a gravy boat. After 10 or 20 minutes of effort, you may complete a 90 degree turn, but not once in all that time will the view in the cockpit of any one the probably 17 TIE fighters chasing you by this time have changed one iota from this:

As for you, you can't see anything out the front of your cockpit. You're far too slow to get behind anything, even the Death Star. But if you look backwards, you'll see this:

...and behind that lot you may notice another flying object, which an artist has attempted to render here for us:

And where, might you ask, is your escort, while the dastardly fascist Imperials are cruelly taunting you in your lumbering crate with the knowledge your own imminent demise? Well, as someone who has already been privileged enough to fly X-Wings, A-Wings and B-Wings on previous missions, and as such on those occasions was given the gift of possible survival, you yourself have already recieved the friendly advice of your squadron leader:

Yes, the hotshots are off destroying the very targets that they in theory specifically assigned the Y-Wings to the mission to destroy, and being careful to stay clear of the area soon to become your debris cloud. Leaving you, you poor sap, with no other option but to take the following advice:

And I think we all know how that turns out:

And in the control room, another tragic loss is mourned:

So children, what have we learned?

We've learned that doing all this takes me a long time. But we've also learned: when they read out that duty roster, fake a sicky, shoot yourself in the foot, go to the Dark Side, but whatever you do, DON'T get in that Y-Wing, for your chances of survival are slim. Slim, slim, slim:

Volunteer to be the gunner in the Millennium Falcon instead, like this guy:

...because you just know anyone on that ship is gonna survive.

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