Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars movies is about as recognizable as Darth Vader or a lightsaber. It’s a smuggling ship, hot rod and plot device all rolled into one. After all, it’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. It also shares some similarities with another famous and strange looking vehicle, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. While it’s important to note that one of them is fictional, both served their star systems well. Both the Millennium Falcon and the P-38 are deceptively fast, look weird as hell and they served pivotal roles in their respective universes.
In Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Luke Skywalker derides it as a piece of junk before it swoops in at the last second and disables Darth Vader’s TIE fighter and saves the day at the end of the movie. In the next movie Empire Strikes Back, it successfully evades an entire squadron of TIE fighters before hiding inside an asteroid/space worm. After being stolen and stored on the desert junk planet of Jakku, The Force Awakens depicts the Falcon outflying the best of the First Order’s pilots with Finn and Rey in the cockpit. It does this all while being mocked as a goofy looking piece of flying junk. With Lando Calrissian as a pilot, the Millennium Falcon fires the last shots that destroy the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning served the United States armed forces primarily in the Pacific theater of World War II and was utilized in just about every role possible ranging from a bomber escort to photo reconnaissance. A pilot and Medal of Honor recipient by the name of Richard Bong had 40 confirmed enemy aircraft kills while seated in the cockpit of a P-38. During the course of the war, it was referred to as “the fork-tailed devil.” Its large airframe and twin boom design allowed it to be fitted with all manner of .50 caliber machine guns, bombs, cannons and rockets. It was powered by two giant supercharged 28-liter 12-cylinder engines which allowed it to go much faster than any other fighter plane in the world when it was introduced in 1940.