Tag Archives: Airbus

Blue Yonder

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This time of year it seems every advert is for a holiday. Even the ones here at The Lego Car Blog have switched to promoting trips to sunnier climes.

Which is sadly of no relevance to this TLCB Writer, what with this gig paying the square root of nothing.

However he can at least imagine a trip to somewhere less cold thanks to previous bloggee BigPlanes and his spectacular Airbus A220 in JetBlue livery.

Recreating the airliner in incredible detail, BigPlanes’ creation includes working landing gear, a fully fitted interior, and a passenger list of mini-figures luckier than this writer.

There’s loads more of this amazing Airbus to see at BigPlanes’ ‘JetBlue Airbus A220’ album, and you can join us wishing we were on it via the link above.

Sécurité Civile

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Despite a simmering disdain for one another, France and TLCB’s home nation are more alike than we’d both like to think.

Separated by just 21 miles of water, each has just undergone a snap election called by an incumbent leader (who has then lost), and both also saw a notable rise in what was once ‘the far right’ – but is now perhaps just ‘the right’, such is its popularity – thwarted by left-wing politics.

Of course that’s where the similarities end, as post-election the British ‘far right’ will have gone to the pub to drink and bemoan the archaic first-past-the-post voting system, whilst their French counterparts will no doubt be setting fire to buses for the rest of the week.

Cue this rather good Airbus EC 145 helicopter by TLCB newcomer Smilt Spartane, constructed in French ‘Sécurité Civile’ livery, and most often used for Search and Rescue and in combatting forest fires.

Smilt’s EC 145 includes a detailed interior, opening doors, and rotating rotors, and there’s more to see – including a link to building instructions – on Flickr. Click the link above to take off over a burning pile of car tyres somewhere in Paris, or here to see LEGO’s own rather larger version.

LEGO Icons 10318 Concorde | Set Preview

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LEGO’s latest Icons set is arriving with a boom. This is the brand new Icons 10318 Airbus Concorde.

Developed in the 1960s by France and Great Britain, the Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde was the world’s first supersonic airliner. Flying at twice the speed of sound, Concorde halved traditional jet airliner travel times, and could fly higher and faster than even fighter jets of the time.

Unfortunately this incredible speed meant immense noise, and not just the sonic boom but during take-off too, limiting supersonic flight to the skies over open water and causing almost every potential airport destination to block Concorde flights in the face of local opposition.

It also meant huge costs, more than double those of a conventional jet airliner, with Concorde (operated in effect by the British and French governments) losing money every single year.

The British Concordes were eventually sold for ‘next to nothing’ to the newly privatised British Airways, and yet – despite all the problems and the financial disaster of the project – Concorde was the way for wealthy passengers to fly transatlantic until its retirement in 2003.

Paying homage to probably the most iconic aircraft ever built, the new 10318 Concorde set recreates the supersonic airliner from 2,083 pieces, and includes a miniaturised interior, working retracting landing gear, and the aircraft’s famous ‘drooping nose’ that allowed the pilots to see the ground when taxiing.

Measuring over a metre long and aimed at ages 18+, 10318 is expected to cost $199.99 / £169.99 / €199.99 when it reaches stores next month, and you can book your supersonic flight from September 7th.

LEGO Technic H2 2022 | Set Previews

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Our Elves have been sneaking again! Although we forgot to write about their discovery of the new H2 2022 Technic sets until we saw that LEGO had released them for sale on Monday. Never mind…

So, although you can find these on LEGO.com for sale right now, here are the two new LEGO Technic sets for August 2022!

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42144 Material Handler

First up (above), and looking excellent, is the brand new 42144 Material Handler, an 835-piece recreation of those giant grabby crane things that operate in scrapyards. And seeing as literally everyone wants to have a go at smashing a giant grab through the roof a scrap car, LEGO’s decision to create a fully working Technic version looks rather inspired.

The new 42144 set returns proper pneumatics to the Technic line-up, with a boom extending to 35cm courtesy of two large pneumatic cylinders pressurised by hand, whilst a small pneumatic cylinder opens and closes the grab.

A decent level of mechanical functions are present too, with 42144 including working outriggers, steering, a rotating boom superstructure, and an elevating cab.

It all looks rather good, but so it should do, as the new Technic 42144 Material Handler costs an enormous £105 / $150.

This sizeable price-tag generates a figure of 13p / 18c per piece, which is exactly double that of the 42054 Claas Xerion 5000 from five years ago, and 50% more than the 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set from just two years ago.

Perhaps you might not want to scrap that old car after all…

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42145 Airbus H175 Rescue Helicopter

LEGO’s second new arrival for August 2022 brings a helicopter back into the Technic range, a vehicle type that always seems to translate well to the theme. Unlike past iterations though, 42145 is an officially licensed replica of a real-world helicopter, in this case the Airbus H175.

Now as a car blog we have no idea what an Airbus H175 is, and would have been just as happy with a ‘generic’ helicopter, but aircraft fans are likely to enjoy its real-world basis as much as we do LEGO’s officially licensed cars and trucks.

Measuring over 70cm long and aimed at ages 11+, 42145 includes a motor that powers both the main and tail rotor, the rescue winch, and the retractable landing gear, whilst also spinning the engines too, which is a nice touch.

42145’s mechanical functions are limited to opening doors and a working swash plate to control rotor pitch, but seeing as the latter is fiendishly difficult to create that’s probably sufficient.

On sale now, the new Technic 42145 Airbus H175 Rescue Helicopter costs £180 / $210, making it even more expensive than the 42144 Material Handler above. However with a far more reasonable price per piece figure (even with a motor included), it 42145 looks to be the much better value of the two.

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Both new Technic sets are available now via LEGO.com and other retailers, alongside all of the Technic sets from H1 revealed here at TLCB earlier in the year.

Emirates Airbus A380 | Picture Special

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Some Lego builders’ user names are just right. This is BigPlanes’ Emirates Airlines Airbus A380 Superjumbo, and it is really, really big.

With a wingspan of 7ft, BigPlanes’ recreation of the world’s largest passenger plane is a constructed in an almost unbelievable mini-figure scale, and uses no hidden supports, metal framework, or glue.

What it does use is tens of thousands of LEGO pieces, several electric motors, and a whole lot of LED lights to faithfully replicate Emirates’ flagship airliner, including both decks, a four-pilot cockpit, working flaps and tail control surfaces, retractable landing gear, and even powered engines.

Each class of travel is accurately represented too, from First (which features a bar, lounge, and even a waterfall fountain), through Business (with fold flat seats and individual screens), to Premium Economy (where passengers’ benefit from their knees not being a structural element of the seat in front), and finally Economy (basically a cattle-truck).

Beautiful spiral staircases link the two decks, which also include luxury bathrooms in First (and holes in the floor for Economy), galley kitchens, and even crew sleeping accommodation.

A monumental undertaking a year in the making, BigPlanes’ phenomenal determination and skill has resulted in surely one of the finest Lego creations ever built. Buy your ticket to fly Emirates at his astonishing ‘LEGO Emirates Airbus A380’ album on Flickr, where forty incredible images are available to view. It’s probably worth spending a little extra to upgrade to Premium Economy though…

Eurmerican

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Lego UH-73 Dakota

With many of the Elves still dispatched on their secret mission to LEGO HQ we’ve got the time to feature more of your suggestions. Today’s comes from Andrew Somers on Flickr, with his ‘UH-73 Dakota’ military helicopter.

Loosely based on the Eurocopter UH-72 Lakota, his re-work has been lightly Americanised for the notoriously biased… er, we mean ‘patriotic’ US Military procurement suits. The real Eurocopter UH-72 is built by American Europcopter, a division of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company of North America, itself a division of Airbus Group, which by the sounds of it tried to get the word ‘America’ into the company names wherever possible to assist with U.S Sales. It seems to have worked, with over 250 Lakotas built for the U.S Military in the short time since it was introduced.

You can see more of Andrew’s upgraded Lego variant of Europe’s finest via the link above.

To Fly. To Serve.

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Lego Airbus A380 British AirwaysThis incredible model is a little outside our usual field here at The Lego Car Blog, but much too special for us to overlook. The work of Ed Diment, aka Lego Monster on Flickr, it’s a commission piece that now hangs in one of the shops in London-Heathrow Airport.

It is of course a replica of the magnificent Airbus A380 in British Airways livery. It’s also in 1:55 scale, which ordinarily would mean a model not very big at all. In this case 1:55 equates to a truly massive creation. Ed is a professional model builder for Bright Bricks, and you can see all the photos of the awe-inspiring piece on Flickr at the link above.