'Well, that was one long commercial break,' Wes remarked.

Hobbie nodded sagely. 'Indeed. But before we get back to our Pinook race, I have a question for you all. How many people are familiar with Freitek's E-7 E-wing escort starfighter?'

A few people in the audience raised their hands. Wes and Tycho did, too, with looks of disgust plastered on their faces.

'Yes,' Hobbie said, 'horrid craft all around at the start. Bad teething problems with its rushed production, absurd maintenance requirements, the topside cannon literally melting off and leaving you trapped in the cockpit, the whole thing about needing a new astromech model that nobody liked. And even when Freitek managed to fix all of those, Incom had released the superb XJ series, leaving Freitek's ship in the dust and its finances in the red. The old E-wing is slowly but quietly being phased out of frontline service. And what does that mean for Alliance Starfighter Command?'

'No longer having to service those awful hanger queens?' Wes ventured.

'Correct!' Hobbie said. 'Because, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new stock-keeping unit on the market from Freitek!'

The holocam's capture field panned to show Hobbie standing right next to a new starfighter model parked in the studio. 'And we get to test-fly it! Sort of.'

Cut to a series of action and fly-by shots of the classic E-7 streaking across starfields, through the skies over Coruscant, in the space above Sullust, and alongside an Alliance fleet carrier.

'This,' Hobbie said from inside the E-wing's cockpit, 'is the original E-7. Or, more specifically, the E-7D: the previous E-wing production model. Not a bad starfighter in terms of performance.'

He rolled hard to port, dove past an asteroid, and climbed again, ripping past the camera.

'It's more maneuverable than a T-65AC4, about on par with an XJ7, with similar levels of laser firepower. It also has a pretty ludicrous torpedo capacity of sixteen. That's as much as a B-wing, all in a package that's about the size of an X-wing.'

Switching to ordnance, Hobbie paint-torped a pair of practice targets then zoomed past. 'All in all, she's pretty capable of hitting above her weight class. But even with all of Freitek's fixes, she never quite got over some problems.'

The program switched to a hangar shot of the E-wing. From inside the cockpit, Hobbie popped the canopy. Well, he tried.

'Oh, for the love of-' Hobbie grunted as he tried pushing the canopy up, but it failed to budge, what with the big topside laser cannon sitting there.

'You see, ladies and gentlemen, Freitek had the ingenious idea of mounting a laser above the canopy. Normally, these are supposed to retract into the craft when you're docked to give the canopy room to open. In an emergency, the eject sequence blows the bolts that keep the cannon secured to the fighter, jettisoning the entire top section. Sounds reasonable on paper, but in space, not so much. If something slags the retraction or ejection mechanisms, you're pretty much stuck in here. Which is bad if, like most Alliance pilots, you need to perform deep space maintenance at some point in your career. The earlier models had even worse ejection methods, where the seat would be shot out the underside. It works in the void, sure, but when you're ejecting while in atmo, things can get, ah, messy.'

Once more, the camera view switched to space, where two starfighters flew towards one another. As they finished the joust pass, the camera focused on the new starfighter. Through some editing trickery, Hobbie was in this one, also.

'But that was the E-7D,' he said. 'The old E-wing. This is not the E-7D.'

Hobbie's new craft was similar in silhouette to the E-7D. Like the E-7D, its silhouette resembled an X-wing with its top two s-foils chopped off, with a beak-like nose tip and rugged, angular features. There were a few differences, though. Unlike the E-7D, the new fighter's third cannon was mounted under the craft, right under the nose. The torpedo launchers were split up and moved closer to the bases of the wings so the barrels weren't directly behind the new laser mount. The hull geometry was slightly curvier and a bit smoother, with old greebly bits quietly tucked away under larger hull plates. Conformal fuel tanks mounted on the engines also gave it a slightly heavier silhouette than its older sister.

'This is the E-7E E-wing Escort/Strike Fighter,' Hobbie explained. 'Or as I call it, the EEEE-wing. EEEE-wing. That's fun to say. Like Luuke Skywalker. Luuuuke Skywalker. Heh.'

The EEEEE-wing Tallon-rolled to starboard, vaping a practice target with its guns. Curiously, though, its middle cannon fired blue bolts.

'As you can see, the EEEEEE-wing has replaced one of its laser cannons with an ion cannon. To compensate, its remaining two lasers have had their power cranked up. It comes at the cost of slower recharge, unfortunately, but we don't want the cannons burning out again, do we? And its torp capacity is exactly the same as its predecessor's so you never really lost any firepower.'

Hobbie chased a mobile target. It took him a few shots before he managed to bag it. 'Unfortunately, the slower cycle rate makes it a bit harder to dogfight. The new laser cannons hit like a truck, but they're really more suited for hitting large, hardened targets, which fits the strike role quite well. But now for the question Tycho keeps asking me. How does it handle?'

Cut to the show's test track. Amid the wrecks, obstacles, and other stellar debris, Hobbie did dirty, dirty things to his EEEEEEE-wing. K-turns, various flavors of roll, a split S, and many other things that can't be described without causing spontaneous fizzing in the groin were performed.

'I am erect,' Hobbie stated simply. 'It handles really, really well for a strike fighter. The controls are responsive, it handles nearly as well as the XJ7, and there's a button here called "Ace mode" which sets your stick to max sensitivity and diverts power to engines and maneuvering thrusters. It has slightly less agility than the E-7D, but that's mostly because of the added mass of the CFTs. Ditch those, and you probably go back up to old-timey agility. And as non-sexual icing on the cake? The astromech port's been updated to accommodate older models like R2s and R5s, so you no longer have to shell out for an R7. Back there, I've got my old R3 installed. Say hello, R3!'

R3-A2 beeped a greeting over the comm.

'Let's see what the button does, shall we?'

Hobbie tapped the key on his control board and maxed the throttle. 'Sweet mother of space, that button isn't just a link to the engines! It's also hooked up to the pilot's sex drive!'

As Hobbie put the hammer down, the background music's tempo and volume picked up, the camera showing off his flight maneuvers as he took full advantage of the E-7E's maneuverability. A great deal of maneuvering and shooting went on. It was quite exciting. But like all arousing things, everything must come to an end. And as Hobbie flew at the camera, the screen blacked out.

'So it was good, then,' Wes said.

'Good,' Hobbie confirmed. 'A great strike fighter all around. Not as good at dogfighting as an X- or A-wing, nor as versatile an ordnance platform as the new Y-wings because it only has regular torp launchers rather than multipurpose deals. Otherwise, though, I definitely see this replacing the B-wing.'

Tycho raised a surprised eyebrow. 'A bold claim.'

'A true claim,' Hobbie said. 'It's faster, more maneuverable, and similarly durable. Armament is quite similar, minus the B-wing autoblasters that nobody uses. And they're both absurd maintenance queens already, so not much change there.'

'So how much will it cost?'

'Classified,' Hobbie said. 'Freitek made me sign an NDA about the price and maintenance requirements. I'm also forbidden from discussing the high-tech electronic gadgets they've stuck in.'

'Also,' Wes asked, 'wasn't Freitek supposed to make it really modular with different sorts of gear loadouts and hardpoints?'

'Originally, yes, but Freitek ran out of money. So we get one standard-issue equipment set.'

'Can we test out its lap time at least?' Tycho asked.

Hobbie shook his head. 'Yeah, Freitek's not keen on that, either. And those two very large guards over there are here to make sure none of us abscond with it for a joyride.'

Facepalming, Wes said, 'Well, alright, then. I guess we'll have to wait until Freitek gets their heads out of their asses to hand it over to our tame racing pilot. Speaking of B-wing replacements, I know there are many, many B-wing enthusiasts out there in the galaxy, so if you do disagree with the notion of the EEEEEEEE-wing replacing the B-wing, please feel free to e-mail us with the subject line, "Keyan Farlander paid me to say this," at Top Gear dot holonet dot magic dot something!'

'And without further ado,' Tycho continued, 'back to the Pinooks!'