Will I be missing out on anything if I start on Heart of the Tiger, the 1st two are way too old for my taste.

While there are some cool stuff to enjoy in the first two. Particulary the 2nd is more story driven and polished the first. You can get by without playing them.

WC1: Mankind has been at war with the kilrathi for an eternity. A young pilot named Christopher Blair single-handedly won a number of major victories for the Confederation while flying out of the carrier Tiger's Claw

WC2: Blair is unjustly disciplined for one of his actions and demoted to backwater patrol duty. He soon rejoins with the Confederacy and resumes kicking ass, rebuilding his stellar (zing) reputation.

You're Blair, you kick ass, enter WC3

You will not know why Kilrathi is your best friend :) - I mean Hobbes of course and what happened on the Concordia before it went down..

Wing Commander 3 connects pretty poorly with the second game; the first thing it does is destroy the ship from WC2 off-screen, apparently killing most of the cast of that game as they are never mentioned. The few surviving characters don't have exactly the same personalities, either.

So no, I don't think you'd be missing much in terms of story.

"killing most of the cast"

You mean: Towlyn, Maniac, Hobbes, Palladin, Angel?? Come on, there are a "lot of survivors" with their own stories before wing 3..

Their personality havn't changed a lot..

I had honestly forgotten that John Rhys-Davies' character in WC3 was Paladin from the first two games!

Still, WC2 had a number of returning characters from WC1 and most of those don't return for WC3 and I don't think any of the original characters from WC2 return in WC3. WC3 mostly spends time with its own original characters.

Angel is back, but only to set up a cliffhanger plot in the opening cinematic then quickly resolve it later.

WC3 has a rather different feel from WC1 or 2 so I think they wanted to start more-or-less fresh.

lets see..

Wing commander 1 characters:

Spirit, Doomsday, Jazz, Angel, Maniac, Paladin, (Thrakhath is mentioned) - survive to wing 2

(Hunter, Col Halcyon, Knight, Bossman and Iceman are killed between 1 and 2 - it's cano

Wing Commander 2 characters:

Doomsday, Jazz, Angel, Maniac, Paladin, Towlyn, Bear, , Hobbes, Thrakhath, The Emperor

(Spirit, Jazz die in wing 2 again canon)

Wing Commander 3 still has:

Maniac, Paladin, Towlyn, Angel (yes I know she dies in wing 3 :) Thrakhath, The Emperor and Hobbes
So only two minor characters are missing: Doomsday and Bear.

Fronzel, I can't agree with you that most of the crew is missing.

gg162 asked for canon not for gameplay.
It's true wc 3 has a little different feel from previous wings but it's obvious, they switched from "cartoon" to movies :) the game is much more the same (the only difference is gfx off course).

regards

You'll miss Maniac going batshit crazy in Secret Missions two and getting to fly with him has as your wingman of last resort. "Ramming Speed!"

Finding out (in WC2's Secret Mission 2) the "special feature" Confed R&D added to the top-of-the-line fighter that he was in charge of testing after he suggested it is another funny character moment.