Brian Daley's Z-95 Headhunter

[psCargile]

I'm placing this in the Gallery because the design is complete and the only things missing are a few details.

First and foremost, this was done as a project of the Star Wars Deckplan Alliance for use in Frank Bonura's SWRPG games. It is the result of two years of research and development within the Deckplan Alliance's private forum where a cumulative 87 forum pages where devoted to it. I have done hundreds of concept sketches, and this is the third conceptual model of the process.

Our goal was to achieve as close as possible the craft described by deceased author Brian Daley in his novel Han Solo at Star's End. In an interview conducted by Alex Newborn, Daley states that:

I saw [z-95s] as a Lucasfilm version of the P-38 Lightning, America's renowned "Fork-Tailed Devil" of WWII. . .

Thus we learned we had to incorporate the aesthetics of a P-38 that he envisioned, with the "swing-wing", "arrowhead", F-14-like craft he writes about, while including features of the canonical Mark IIs and the X-wing. The Mark IIs and the X-wing features are subtle and notable in the shield generator/projector and the engine design.

There are compromises in the design. For instance, I don't particularly like the exhaust flowing over the inward flight surfaces. There was no viable solutions while working within the constraints of Daley's P-38 look, so we chose to leave it as is. We also realize that some will argue that it doesn't look Star-Wars enough, and there has been much debate in the private SWDA forum as to what is meant by his phrase "Lucasfilm version". I in particular argued that Daley wrote about the Z-95 with a well versed knowledge of real fighters and aerial combat maneuvers and described a fighter that was more aircraft than spacecraft. This is reinforced by the fact that he writes of other aerospace craft in is other Han Solo novels that are decidedly more aircraft than spacecraft. The Z-95 should be regarded more as an airspeeder and less of a starfighter.

Frank Bonura's upcoming section of the Headhunter will cover more of the research concerning West End Games, that went into this project. I will be happy to answer questions about our interpretation of Daley's famous fighter.

[FVBonura]

Paul thank you so much for two years of hard work, putting up with many false starts, my constant complaining, and at last the eventual discovery of this incredible fighter you lifted off the pages of chapter 4 of "Han Solo at Stars' End". You have honored the memory of Brian Daley and have brought to light the true Z-95 Headhunter that the young Han Solo piloted as he helped in the battle over the outlaw tech base repelling the CSA's dreaded IRD fighters.

With this project, it is my hope, we can dispense the many misconceptions and myths about the appearance of this ship that have been a problem since 1987 with the publishing of West End Games "The Star Wars® Tatooine Manhunt" (page 31) and publications that followed that copied the error. Again thank you.

As a side note:
As part of our research, we discovered the 80th Fighter Squadron was dubbed "The Headhunters" by squadron commander Edward "Porky" Cragg. We strongly believe this was one of the influences behind Brian Daley's fighter because "The Headhunters" flew P-38 Lightnings in WW II.

I hope the STAR WARS Community and fans of Brian Daley's Novels find this a most curious, interesting, and ground-breaking project.

[spudmonkey]

To be honest it doesn't say Star Wars to me at all; more Macross right now. Perhaps some of the other angles will show the influence of the X-Wing's features? I would also have expected the P-38 influence to be much stronger than it is right now too...

[Starscream]

Yeah, gotta say that I personally prefer the Incom/Subpro X-Wing based designs myself - especially with the advent of the ARC-170 in RotS.

[rodglas]

I like the model but I don't think it really works as a Star Wars fighter in the x-wing line. That being said I don't love the official Z-95 either. I just seems to me their is a compromise in there somewhere.

I'd like to see a couple more views if you don't mind.

Rod

[psCargile]

It's unlikely that Daley meant the Z-95 to be a forerunner of the X-wing. WEG made this mistake using Joe Johnston's concept art as the Z-95 Mk II. We've concluded that the Mark II is the result of a merger of two Subpro craft, the Headhunter and the C-73 Tracker.

[IRML]

did you do all this yourself? it looks like a kitbash of a fighter jet

[Andrew March]

Can't say I like this at all, definately not Star Wars in any way that I can see.

[spudmonkey]

Originally Posted by psCargile

It's unlikely that Daley meant the Z-95 to be a forerunner of the X-wing. WEG made this mistake using Joe Johnston's concept art as the Z-95 Mk II. We've concluded that the Mark II is the result of a merger of two Subpro craft, the Headhunter and the C-73 Tracker.

Now admittedly it's been a long, long time since I read the book, but as it was written after Star Wars came out and was based in the same universe then his intention would have been to have something that fitted into the same general design, though divergent enough to be uniquely identifiable as a different ship. This ship looks no where near being a part of the Star Wars universe, so to me you have missed the target by some distance.

Judging by the description of it being a Lucasart's P-38 then I would imagine the ship to be more along the lines of an early Y-Wing but perhaps with wings as that would keep it within the overall style of the universe whilst retaining the two engine P-38 style... I'll have to dig the book out next time I go to my folks place and read it again

[Coolhand]

I like how the engines are blowing over the control surfaces, you'd get a bit of thrust vectoring off those. If you hadn't have said though, i wouldn't have got the influences you mention, it looks like a macross design not SW (it has wings which actually look useful for example)and the F-14 influences have pretty much totally smothered the P-38 though that may be more evident from other angles with the wings extended.

Perhaps you should try a different approach to how you're designing this, instead of thinking "i need a wing" and looking at real life aircraft, look at a starwars design instead and try and draw inspiration from that universe.