Tag Archives: Aircraft

Schneider Trophy

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Just a decade on from the aeroplane’s invention and there were already international races occurring. One of the most famous was the Schneider Trophy, in which teams from across Europe sent their finest flying inventions to race a course to glory.

Racing ceased in 1914 due to an international disagreement, but returned again in 1919, when said dispute had been mostly-kinda-not-really-resolved. The aforementioned wrangle had continued to dramatically further the development of the aeroplane though, so that was nice.

Cue these two superb brick-built entrants into the Schneider Trophy, as constructed by TLCB debutant Hod Carrier of Flickr. Above is the Sopwith Tabloid, Britain’s valiant entry into the 1913 Monaco event, whilst below is the remarkable Italian Savoia S-21 floatplane, which went on to be flown by a cartoon pig for some reason.

Each recreates its real-world counterpart beautifully in miniature, and there’s more to see of both aircraft, plus other Schneider Trophy entrants in both digital and real-brick forms, at Hod Carrier’s album of the same name. Click here to race through the skies above a European sea over a century ago!

Passing Wind

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Passing wind never smelt so good. Elven* adventurers Eol Skydiver and Kaledor Tesliar are traversing the atmospheric circulation in their magicanical botanical airship. We know not how it works, not where they’re going, but we’re delighted to float alongside them. Dwarlin Forkbeard is the director of this aeronautical adventure and you can join him, Eol and Kaledor via the link above.

*TLCB Elves must be a different sort. Their wind makes your eyes hurt.

1917

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Nowhere has the pace of development through conflict been faster than in early aeronautics.

Less than a decade-and-a-half after the first ever powered flight – in which the Wright Brothers climbed 10ft into the air and travelled 120ft at 6.8mph – pilots could climb to 19,000ft and fly for 300 miles at well over 100mph. At least, you could if you were piloting a Sopwith F.1 Camel.

In service from 1917, the Camel scored more enemy kills than any other Allied aircraft during the Great War, and was a formidable fighter in both dog-fights and ground attacks. Until a year later, when it was obsolete.

Today just eight Sopwith Camels survive, but you can take a closer at this one courtesy of Flickr’s _Tiler, who has recreated the famous First World War fighter beautifully in brick-form, and presented it rather nicely too.

Head into the skies over France in 1917’s top fighter aircraft via the link above.

Super Supermarine

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It’s the 29th of December 1944, and RCAF Squadron 411 is in a battle with a group of Luftwaffe fighters over Osnabrück in western Germany.

At the controls of his Supermarine Spitfire IXe, Fight Lieutenant Dick Audet has an FW190 in his sights. The Spitfire’s guns tear into the enemy aircraft, until – after a moment – it rolls over and plunges downwards to destruction.

Audet watches for a few seconds, before snapping back to the fight raging around him, and turns his sights to the next German fighter. Over the next five to seven minutes Audet destroys a further four enemy aircraft, astonishingly becoming both an ‘Ace-in-a-Day’ and the only Spitfire pilot to achieve Ace status in a single sortie.

Audet would go on to fly over fifty sorties, claiming eleven enemy kills, before he too was killed in action, brought down in March of 1945 by the anti-aircraft defences of the German train he was strafing.

This spectacular homage to Fight Lieutenant Dick Audet was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr, and comes from crash_cramer, who has recreated Audet’s glorious Supermarine Spitfire IXe in massive 1:9 scale.

Measuring over a metre long and with a 120cm wingspan, this incredible brick-built replica doesn’t look like LEGO at all, such is its phenomenal realism. Admittedly, that might be because a few components are not in fact LEGO, with the propellor spinner, exhausts, wheel caps, guns, aerial, and outer-wing leading edges meticulously 3D-printed, whilst the cockpit canopy is vacuum-formed.

A green vinyl wrap recreates the Spitfire’s camouflage, with superb decals replicating the roundels and squadron markings of Audet’s fighter.

The result is very probably the most accurate aircraft that this site has ever featured, and you can find all of the stunning imagery, plus read more about the build and the amazing story of Fight Lieutenant Dick Audet, at crash_cramer’s photostream. Join us there via the link in the text above.

The Alternative

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Here at The Lego Car Blog we’re big fans of up-cycling. Repurposing one thing into another thing is both advantageous to the wallet, and means that one fewer new thing has had to be made, usually by digging something out of the ground/cutting down a tree, melting/refining it in a factory, and shipping it in a giant box full of other new things half-way round the world.

Of course LEGO by design is an up-cycler’s dream. Endlessly reusable, reconfigurable, and hand-down-able, it is the antidote to crappy single-use plastic toys that will last a thousand times longer in landfill or our oceans than they will in the hands of a child.

Cue previous bloggee M_Longer, who today demonstrates LEGO’s greatest attribute brilliantly by up-cycling two 2025 entry-level Technic sets into entirely new models.

M_Longer’s JCB Fastrac (above) uses every one of the parts from the 42199 Monster Jam DIGatron set, whilst his helicopter (below) swaps the ocean depths of the 42201 Deep-Sea Research Submarine for the skies, and includes a pitching main rotor and a hand crank that turns it and the tail rotor simultaneously.

There’s more to see of M_Longer’s 42199 JCB Fastrac, or alternatively his 42201 helicopter, at both Eurobricks (where links to building instructions can also be found) and Bricksafe, and you can take a look at each up-cycled alternate via the links below;

Helicopter: Eurobricks / Bricksafe, JCB Fastac: Eurobricks / Bricksafe

Lao Che Air Freight

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Almost entirely known for their cars and pickups, Ford also once made aircraft. The 1930s Ford Tri-Motor was much admired, with around 200 built for civilian and military use before the Second World War.

It was also the aircraft of choice for Indiana Jones’ protagonist in ‘The Temple of Doom’ being operated by the evil Lao Che and his air freight business.

This superb render of the Tri-Motor in ‘Lao Che Air Freight’ livery comes from Robson of Flickr, who has captured the real plane and its fictional operator brilliantly.

There’s more of Robson’s wonderful creation to see on Flickr, and you can click the link above to jump back to a time when Ford made more than F-150s.

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.

Red Pig

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The best imaginations are based on reality. This odd looking machine is a ‘Savoia S-21’ as depicted in the Japanese animated movie ‘Porco Rosso’. It is however, based on a real Italian 1920s air racer, that if anything looked even stranger than its cartoon counterpart. Eero Okkonen is the creator of this appealing brick-built interpretation, complete with the cape-wearing titular protagonist, and there’s more to see at his photostream.

Star Sailor*

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We’re having a whimsical return after our Christmas break, and it continues with this splendid hovership by Flickr’s Konajra. A quad of hull-mounted anti-gravity engines provide the ‘Zephyr Voyager’ with lift, whilst the traditional masts provide, um…

It looks beautiful though, and perhaps beauty doesn’t need to make logical sense. Float on over to take a closer look at Konajra’s ship of the skies via link above.

*Today’s wonderful title song.

LEGO Technic H1 2025 | Set Previews

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It’s a few weeks before Christmas
And all through LEGO’s HQ
TLCB Elves have been sneaking
Finding sets to preview.

Yes it’s that time of year once again, when a crack team of ‘volunteer’ Elves are thrown over the LEGO Company’s perimeter wall to uncover next year’s new Technic sets. This is the complete H1 2025 Technic line-up!

42197 Backhoe Loader

LEGO Technic 42197 Backhoe Loader

We kick off the 2025 Technic range with this, the new 42197 Backhoe Loader. A neat counterpart to last year’s 42163 Heavy-Duty Bulldozer, 42197 includes a raising front bucket via a worm gear and a roof mounted cog, a posable backhoe, and deployable stabilisers. Just 104 pieces are needed, it’s aimed at ages 7+, and it fulfils the starter-set brief beautifully.

42198 Bush Plane

LEGO Technic Bush Plane 42198

Trebling the piece-count is the 42198 Bush Plane, a welcome and too-rare foray into fixed wing aircraft.

Aimed at ages 8+, 42198 includes a flat-4 piston engine linked to the propellor and powered – we think – by an intriguing push-beam mechanism that simultaneously operates working ailerons (flaps) that flip in opposing directions to make turns.

Besides the rather clunky-looking landing gear, 42198 looks like an excellent small-scale set, with zebra-stripe stickerage and some good parts too, including propellor blades, new white beams, and a surprising number of gears. We like.

42199 Monster Jam DIGatron & 42200 Monster Jam ThunderROARus

After a short break away from Monster Jam for the Pull-Backs, LEGO is returning to the partnership for 2025. And that’s no bad thing, as these sets are really only designed for one purpose; being launched down a hallway and over a ramp made of books and a cereal box.

42199 Monster Jam DIGatron and 42200 Monster Jam ThunderROARus will no doubt perform said task admirably, and – outfitted with both stickers and teeth – they’re perfect for their 7+ target.

42201 Deep-Sea Research Submarine

On to one of 2025’s most unusual Technic sets, the 413-piece 42201 Deep-Sea Research Submarine. Reminiscent of the largely forgotten 1997 Divers sub-theme, 42201 looks rather un-Technic-y, despite being constructed almost exclusively from Technic pieces. A selection of cogs operate the pitch of the propellors and the grab-arm, and you’ll be able to scoop up the remnants of the Ocean Gate Titan when 42201 dives into stores from January 2025.

42202 Ducati Panigale V4 S Motorcycle

Wait, haven’t we done this already? Almost.

The 42202 Ducati Panigale V4 S moves one letter down the alphabet from 2020’s 42107 Ducati Panigale V4 R, and in doing so ups the piece-count by a thousand, the target age by eight, and the price by $100.

Measuring over 40cm long, the new 1,600-piece Ducati will arrive with a foot-operated three-speed (plus neutral) gearbox, a V4 engine chain-linked to the rear wheel, functioning steering, and working suspension, plus some spectacular looking bodywork.

Joining LEGO’s previous 1:5 scale Technic motorcycles (the 42159 Yamaha MT-10 SP and 42130 BMW M 1000 RR), the new 42202 Ducati Panigale V4 S is expected to cost around £170/$200 when it arrives next year, and whilst it does look to somewhat repeat its smaller 42017 brother, there have been dozens of red Ferrari sets to date, so a second (and much larger) Ducati is fine by us.

42203 Tipping Dump Truck

We complete* the new 2025 Technic line-up with a neat mid-size truck of the type LEGO has built for decades. The new 462-piece 42203 Tipping Dump Truck features ‘HOG’ steering, and hand-cranked tipper, and, um… that’s it. Perhaps for £45 we’d have hoped for some basic oscillating suspension or something, but we’re in the minority. LEGO know it’s aesthetics that sell their products today, even Technic ones, and thus 42203 likely loses that extra feature in favour of decals and visual detail. And on those counts it scores rather well.

Aimed at ages 9+, the new 42203 Tipping Dump Truck will join the rest of the new Technic range in stores from early next year, with a few of the new sets (including this one) available to pre-order via the official LEGO website from now.

*Plus of course the 42204 Fast & Furious Toyota Supra Mk4, 42205 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray and 42206 Oracle Red Bull Racing RB20 F1 car sets already revealed here at The Lego Car Blog, and the enormous new LEGO Formula 1 line-up of which the latter is part.

S3cUre Pa55w0Rd

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The Soviets may have been reasonably good at making things to blow up other things, but their naming department was terrible. Whilst in the West we got Cold War aircraft called ‘Apache’, ‘Electric Lightning’, ‘Vulcan’, and ‘Phantom’, the communists got ‘Mil Mi-8 MTV-2 HIP’. Which reads like a secure password.

Despite its crap name, the MIL Mi-8 _Gy72%& is world’s most produced helicopter, and is still in production today, some 56 years after its introduction. This one is from the German ‘Democratic’ Republic (East Germany) in the 1980s, and has been reproduced beautifully by Flickr’s [Maks].

Some light painting adds to the realism, there’s more to see of [Maks]’s MIL Mi-8 @-4Jx7z0P# at his album of the same name (kinda), and you can click here to ensure no-one’ll guess entry to your laptop.

Russian Wings

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Russia, or the Soviet Union before it, are the world’s most prolific maker of military helicopters. Tens of thousands of MiL helicopters have been built since the first design way back in the late 1940s, and are operated by dozens of nations the world over. Including a few you might not expect.

Cue Flickr’s Francis Bibeau, here making their TLCB debut, and these two incredible brick-built replicas of Russia’s finest rotary-wing aircraft.

The first (above) is a Mil Mi-17V-5, as leased by the Canadian military for extraction duties in Afghanistan, whilst the second (below) is a Polish Air Force Mil Mi-8T, the world’s most numerous military helicopter, depicted here on a fast-roping training exercise.

Wonderfully realistic, Francis’ models display forensic attention to detail, clever construction, and deploy custom mini-figures to great effect to bring the scenes to life.

There’s much more to see of each MIL helicopter diorama at Francis’ ‘Bird’ album, and you can hover under rotating Russian wings via the link above.

The Western Front

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Today’s diorama above is an all-too-familiar scene from current news. A helicopter hovers above, a self-propelled gun lurks below, a rocket-launcher fires from behind a tank-defence, whilst power lines, crops, and a humble home remind us of the daily life upended by the arrival of war. Yet this scene isn’t borne of a maniacal Russian President intent on restoring the Soviet Union, but rather a glimpse into a possible near future, wherein Russia has divided and is fighting itself. Flickr’s PelLego has published this fictional conflict in collaboration with several other builders, and you can take a look into their world-that-might-be via the link above.

White Flight

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Monochrome, minimalist, and Scandinavian is very en-vogue right now. We’re not sure said design philosophy applies to rotary-wing aircraft much, but judging by this creation by Aero Explorer it should do.

With a title as straightforward as its colour palette, Aero Explorer’s ‘Lego Helicopter’ is beautiful in its apparent simplicity, but there’s some clever techniques in play to create an exterior of such cleanliness.

Superb presentation matches the construction and there more to see at Aero’s photostream. Click the link above to take flight.

Seahawk

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We’re back, although not with a car… This is a U.S. Navy Sikorsky MH-60S Seahawk, a multirole helicopter in service since the mid-’80s. Based on the U.S Army UH-60 Black Hawk, the Seahawk features folding rotor blades and tail, allowing it to store more easily on the ships from which it operates, and serves in Search and Rescue, Medevac, Anti-Submarine Warfare, Special Naval Warfare, and various other types of Naval airborne operations.

This splendid replica of the MH-60S Seahawk comes from Ralph Savelsberg, who has recreated the U.S Navy helicopter with fantastic attention to detail detail. Enhanced by accurate markings and photographed beautifully, there’s lots more of Ralph’s creation to see at his ‘Lego MH-60S Seahawk’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to land on a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship and take a look.