Tag Archives: Airplane

Porco Rosso’s racing plane takes to the skies

We’ve featured half a dozen or so Savoia S.21 flying boat from Porco Rosso over the years, but it remains one of my favorite LEGO aircraft whenever I run across a new version. This latest incarnation of the racing plane from the 1992 Hayao Miyazaki film is brought to us by Volker Brodkorb. The airplane’s huge engine mounted forward of the cockpit makes this plane instantly recognizable, as do the striping on the angled wings.

Porco Rosso's Savoia S.21

Volker uses curved slopes attached studs out to achieve the sloping shape of the boat-plane’s hull, and the pop of yellow on the front of the propeller is a lovely touch.

Porco Rosso's Savoia S.21

Flying submarine – top gun of the sea

When it comes to building a great LEGO narrative, the right signature element can really set the scene. Take this delightful flying submarine scene by Yang Wang for example. The tall, skinny, chibi-style fuselage with that perfectly rounded canopy creates a unique and fun vehicle. The working tilt rotors make this airship/submersible complete.

A submarine that flies

See more detailed pics of this submersible after the jump

Is it a bird, a plane or a butterfly?

You would be forgiven for thinking that this was a huge LEGO butterfly. It certainly seems to have the key features of one; four wings, clubbed antennae and a segmented body. In fact, Milan Sekiz has called this beastie a Leption, the combination of the Serbian words ‘leptir’ meaning butterfly and ‘avion’ meaning airplane.  I love those shapely wings, Milan must have used some LEGO mathematics to work out how best to fill their centres with decorative, coloured parts.

Leption

You will notice that there is a pilot at the helm, holding on to some handlebars – is he steering or just along for the ride?

Leption - SidesFans of butterflies may enjoy revisiting these two previous butterflies we have highlighted; a colourful glass-like butterfly and a larger, realistic butterfly.

A flying fortress of LEGO bricks

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber aircraft that played a key role for the Allies in World War II. When the prototype B-17 first flew in 1935, a reporter for the Seattle Times was watching and coined the name “Flying Fortress” with his comment, “Why, it’s a flying fortress!” The B-17 was mainly used in the strategic bombing campaign of World War II. PlaneBricks has built a fantastic LEGO version of this famous bomber, complete with the machine guns poking out of clear ‘blisters’ to allow bombardiers and gunners to visualise their targets.

B-17G Flying Fortress

See more images of this classic LEGO aircraft

Microscale A-10 Warthog [Instructions]

For the enjoyment of his fellow military aviation buffs, builder ama77what has beautifully reverse-engineered this microscale A-10 “Warthog” fighter jet from a knock-off brand of building block, recreating it using bona-fide LEGO pieces and presenting it in the form of this handy single-page building guide. There really is nothing more to say here than go build it and SWOOOSH it!

Durable flying machine sweeps the skies

Gerald Cacas brings us a well-shaped LEGO version of the turboprop Fokker 50. There’s a lot of grey going on, but that’s because the build is modelled on the Royal Singapore Air Force version. This old warhorse of an aircraft is still in service with the RSAF in a Utility Transport and Maritime Patrol role. Aside from its realism, the muted tones of the model create an uncluttered feel, really showcasing the builder’s skill.

DSC_1123-01

Nice innovative parts use with the claw element forming the six-bladed propeller on each side. Aviation fans will also notice the attempt to shape the cockpit window as close as possible to the real McCoy.

Harassing your local LEGO farm

Ciamosław Ciamek today brings us simple but very effective, with a small “Barnstomer” plane rudely flying low on a farmer’s land. Take a few seconds to look at this build. There are no complex techniques nor an overwhelming amount of parts — it’s just the right amount of bricks used in the right places.

01 Barnstormer

What I also love about this build is the small scale of the plane. It’s absolutely minute, and there was some cheating done with the build. I assume the minifig head is just stuck on a brick, or one of the 2X2 driver’s bodies that have a minifig head peg. They were popular with the Drome Racers theme in the early 2000’s, and it’s a good way to simulate a full minifig in a small space. Also check out this alternate view, which shows off more of the plane.

04 Barnstormer

Born to fly ...and submerge

Soviet engineers were people with great imagination. Of course, at that time they didn’t have access to LEGO bricks, but even today their peculiar projects look awesome in plastic. Polish builder Ciamosław Ciamek presents Ushakov’s Flying Submarine — a hybrid of a military airplane and a submarine. Not only does it sound cool, it also looks cool. It’s gray, cold and bizarre even for an ambitious Soviet project.

01 Ushakov's Flying Submarine

LEGO Concorde cuts away from the runway as 65,000 bricks take flight

LEGO Certified Professional Ryan McNaught has been busy unveiling some fantastic new creations at Brickvention Australia. We showcased his incredible LEGO minifig-scale 120,000-brick sinking Titanic, and now we take to the skies with LEGO Concorde.

Ryan has chosen to build the iconic supersonic aircraft Concorde in miniland-scale. Building  Concorde in LEGO is cool, but it’s only when you see the other side of the build that the really impressive details emerge.

LEGO Concorde

While one side shows the complete aircraft, the other is an ingenious cutaway view that shows a slice through Concorde.

Click through for more photos of this huge airplane!

Montage of Sky-Fi Fighters by Jon Hall

Jon Hall built five incredible planes this year. To commemorate that, he just posted this montage. Somehow we dropped the ball and only posted one of them here. That lapse has now been rectified. Here they are, all together in their breath-taking awesomeness.

Jon’s planes are truly works of art. So smooth, so seamless, so beautiful. He does paint some of them and uses custom stickers, which probably irritates somebody, somewhere. But he does it so well, I feel it just adds to the “realism” and makes the suspension of disbelief that much easier.

Crimson Storm

Crimson Storm

R-16 Vindicator

R-16 Vindicator

F-49A Patriot

F49A Patriot

S-15 Vulture

S-15 Vulture

He-98 Halberd

He-98 Halberd

Brickmania releases custom Red Baron Fokker Dr. 1 set [News]

Brickmania has just released a new version of the iconic World War I tri-plane flown by Baron Manfred Von Richthofen, The Red Baron. The Fokker Dr. 1 kit includes special MG08 “Spandau” machine guns, hand-injected in the Brickarms studios, as well as a custom printed minifig of the baron himself.