Note: Possible spoiler for Star Wars Rebels season two finale.
In the Star Wars: Rebels season 2 finale, Twilight of the Apprentice, we see the Inquisitors can fly with their lightsabers.
How does this work? Are they using the force? Is this a built in feature in the lightsaber which uses regular helicopter aerodynamics? Some combination of the two?
Thanks to Fatalize for pointing this out.
In Rebels Recon #2.19, LucasFilm's Pablo Hidalgo says that the inquisitors' lightsabers have repulsor lifts in them.
Q. Where are the crystals on the Inquisitors Lightsaber? It wouldn't work if the crystals were inside the main hilt.
A. Well the crystals aren't in the main hilt, I mean if you look at it, I'll just take it out here, the crystals are much closer to the emitterer ray, there's the main charge within the handle, something that pulls the charge as it spins closer to the crystal and then over here we've got this kind of repuslor lift assisted friction-less spinning, so that's basically what we're looking at in a inquisitor lightsaber.
While utterly a theory and may be easily disproved by someone more knowledgeable in the workings of lightsabers, I'm thinking that heat coming off the blades when combined with the super fast rotation speed could lead towards a rising vortex of air or the like?
They can't function as regular blades, that's obvious, since they don't actually have any physical mass to push the air down. But they do generate a nasty amount of heat and heat tends to rise, so spinning heat leads on to vortexes and rising air plumes and the like so..leading to lift perhaps?
Whether it would be enough to lift the bodies of the wielders I'm unsure of, but seeing how customized the Inquisitor blades are it wouldn't be hard to imagine some micro propulsion unit or gravity equipment built in to help with the lift (no evidence visible to this), that and the force of course could be enough to lift and direct them through the air even if just in the form of a big jump with no real flight ability.
But theory! Just wanted to share some thoughts as I quite like the idea and how they unitized it in the combat.
