Star Wars X-wing that actually flew ends up in Smithsonian after Disney debut

Back in 2019, a real X-wing lit up the night sky over Disney World, and now it lives in the Smithsonian.

Boeing secretly built the starfighters to mark the launch of Rise of the Resistance.

They only flew once, but the spectacle convinced crowds they were watching Star Wars spill into real life.

And now, one of those rare machines is frozen in history at the National Air and Space Museum.

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The Star Wars X-wing that wowed Disney crowds

For one surreal night, Star Wars tech became real. 

Boeing transformed a pair of experimental CV2 Cargo Air Vehicle drones into full-scale X-wings. 

Each machine stretched over 20 feet across, powered by 128-kilowatt electric motors and 12 stacked propellers designed for vertical takeoff and landing.

Disney staged their debut under cover of darkness – see the video below.

Ultraviolet spotlights made the drone shells glow.

Audio pumped in the roar of starfighter engines.

And smoke machines sealed the illusion. 

To the thousands watching, Luke’s Death Star-killer wasn’t stuck on screen anymore.

It was carving across the Florida sky.

The reality, however, was far less cinematic. 

The CV2s weren’t armed with proton torpedoes or hyperdrives, just enough lift to carry 500 pounds. 

They were flown remotely, preprogrammed to follow a flight path with human operators only able to hit ‘land now’ or ‘cut power’ in an emergency. 

But none of that mattered. 

For a few minutes, the dream was real.

After the launch weekend, Disney grounded the X-wings for good. 

They never returned to the parks, leaving fans with just a fleeting glimpse.

And a permanent memory.

From one-night stunt to Smithsonian artifact

But while they never wowed crowds from the sky again, one of the X-wings didn’t vanish into a hangar. 

Boeing and Disney gifted it to the Smithsonian, where it now hangs in the Udvar-Hazy Center’s vertical flight collection.

Curators note that beneath the Star Wars shell sits the first heavy-lift eVTOL ever cleared for a commercial flight in the US. 

That makes it more than a movie prop – it’s a genuine aviation milestone.

It only flew once, dazzling Orlando for a few minutes. 

Today it rests in one of the most famous museums in the world.

A stunt turned artifact, proof that sometimes movie dreams really do take flight.

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