Red Flight (K-wings)


Red Flight was a unit of K-wings, in the 24th Bombardment Squadron. They served with the New Republic Fifth Fleet during the Black Fleet Crisis, but took punishing casualties in that campaign.

As initially organized, Red Flight was one of three component units in the squadron, each consisting of six K-wings, with one pilot and one gunner per ship. The flight commander, designated Red Leader was the Narvath pilot Esege Tuketu, flying aboard .

Red Flight participated successfully in the training mission at Bessimir, but suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Doornik-319. Red Four was destroyed attempting an attack run, and at least two more K-wings, Red Three and Red Five, broke off the attack and were shot down as they retreated.

The losses at Doornik-319 led to a reorganization of the squadron. At the subsequent Battle of ILC-905 Red Flight was reduced to three K-wings, heavily supported by six E-wing escort starfighters.

They were tasked to attack the Black Nine shipyard, but as they closed in, the attack formation was reduced to two K-wings, Red One and Red Two, plus a single E-wing, . Red Leader decided to close to point-blank range, and ordered Red Two to get clear, rendezvous with another K-wing pilot named Flick, and make another attack run if required.

Behind the scenes


  • After describing the destruction of three of Red Flight's K-wings at the Battle of Doornik-319, the novel Shield of Lies adds the statement that "Blue Flight fared even worse—only one of the bombers made it back to the comparative safety of Indomitables hangar bays." This novel had previously identified Blue Flight as the E-wing formation acting as Red Flight's own escort unit, and the other K-wing units aboard Indomitable as Black Flight and Green Flight. Unless this is an error, this would seem to imply that at least four of the escorting E-wings 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.
  • In the novel Tyrant's Test, Red One launches a T-33 plasma torpedo from a range of just ten meters to destroy the Black Nine shipyard and the nine Star Destroyers under construction there. Although the pilot claimed that the spacedock's own shields would contain the blast for long enough to allow the plane to get clear, the K-wing's subsequent fate is not specified in the novel.
  • Dialogue in Tyrant's Test would suggest that Flick was the third K-wing pilot of the reduced Red Flight, presumably using the callsign Red Three, but this is not made explicit.

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