Lightning Fighter

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The Lightning is the Imperial Navy's premiere air superiority fighter, with agility unmatched by any other Imperial flyer thanks to its distinctive forward-swept wings. Though its primary weapons are a long-barreled autocannon and twin-linked lascannons for engaging enemy aircraft, it can be fitted with one of several varieties of missiles and bombs to specialize in anti-armor, anti-infantry, or anti-air operations.

Lightning 'Strike'

The 'Strike' variant Lightning is the same airframe, but with more missiles or bombs instead of the underslung autocannon.

Real Life

Forward-swept wings have been tried on real experimental aircraft, and they do confer some benefits, like enhanced maneuverability, improved airflow and the possibility of a more compact airframe. It also comes with the drawbacks of instability (though modern avionics can make the minute corrections required to keep the aircraft steady) and a risk of the wings twisting themselves to pieces at high speeds. These issues meant that it took about 50 years from the idea's conception before prototype high-performance fighter aircraft with forward-swept wings could be built (the Grumman X-29 in 1984, and the Sukhoi Su-47 in 1997).

It took the Adeptus Mechanicus over five hundred years to fix these issues in the Lightning, and they didn't even come up with the idea themselves -- they had to find the STC first.