It even has its own R2D2 – an inflatable droid for easy removal. Inside the cockpit, there are two cameras and a targeting system like the one Luke Skywalker used to destroy the Death Star. Its jet thrusters open and close, as well as light up. It can taxi on the ground at about 4 mph. The X-wing replica, about two-thirds the scale of the original, is operated by a wireless remote control that manipulates its wings and cockpit window. It wasn’t until the late ’80s, when he was a teenager, that he first discovered the “Star Wars” movies and was immediately hooked – he was especially drawn to the theme of good versus evil, which he says “resonated with us very much so.”Īfter six years of designing, tinkering, soldering, welding and backyard hangar-building, Lekiachvili’s starfighter finally became ready to spread its wings… literally. “I guess to prevent so-called ‘Western propaganda.’” “It was very controlled – what kind of movies were allowed to come in and (be) distributed in the Soviet Union,” he says. He grew up in the country of Georgia when it was under Soviet control. Without any blueprints or instructions, the project required a lot of research – watching scenes of the X-wing and studying screenshots from “Star Wars.” Lekiachvili, 50, did not come across the “Star Wars” films in the same way most Gen Xers his age did. The X-wing during the long building process. So, he pivoted to the next best thing and built an X-wing hangar in his backyard. Lekiachvili then built a 30-foot extension for his garage, but it wasn’t big enough to fit the fighter’s iconic moveable wings once they were attached. The project got started in his garage until the spaceship became too big. “Ever since I was a child, I always wanted to be aerospace engineer, but my parents guided me to go to med school,” he says. He calls himself a “tinkerer” with a passion for space. The idea to build the X-wing starfighter came to Lekiachvili in 2016 as a fun way to teach his kids about science and technology. Now that it’s done, he says he’s ready to use its force for good, “to fight the evil empire, just like in the movies.”įor him, that involves raising money for Ukraine. He spent about six years working on the project in his free time. The out-of-this-world replica was the brainchild of Akaki Lekiachvili, who works as a physician at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. It might look like something from a galaxy far, far away but this “Star Wars” X-wing starfighter came from a very earthly garage.
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