Lego Monster is not an average man. Of course there are others playing Lego, but he prefers scale like no one else. Judging from the dates of the photos he started before last Christmas that he builds an aircraft carrier. At scale, of course - as dictated by the size of a minifig. He already had reference material so we had little doubt that he means what he says. This is his previous project, HMS Hood:
His current project is the USS Intrepid (CV-11) aircraft carrier. She served in the United States Navy during World War II in the Pacific theater. The master started with the hull:
He spared no time to get the details right, like the air defense:
Elevator for the aircraft:
Look at this boat:
Slowly it all started to come together. As one can see, size does matter:
The crew is starting to assemble:
An aircraft carrier needs aircraft too. I could not imagine anyone better suited to the task than our old friend Mad Phyisicist. A TBF Avenger and an F4U Corsair are ready for their first mission:
Meanwhile the engineer is working on the island:
The whole project did not reach 100% yet but as I see it it does not need much more. Of course we will report when it is ready. Meanwhile take a look at the gallery of the project and stay tuned for more news bits on twitteren.
The risky purchase project has finished successfully. I admit that this was my biggest gamble evere, I only hoped that it has all the pieces. Although the set has many fragile parts all of them are in excellent shape: nothing is broken or sunburnt, they have not even been covered in dust. From the traces I suspect that the previous owner has built it together once or twice and then all the pieces ended up in a bag, for my luck. This is the oldest set I have bought so far and the one in the best condition - I will make a comparison of all my purchases sometime.
Like its age suggest, the car is built almost entirely from bricks and only a few special parts. The chassis and the bodywork is made of bricks and so is the rear suspension (excluding the springs and some links). Only the front suspension makes heavy use of special parts.
Interestingly, this car is almost a perfect representation of the developments that have happened in the car industry in the last 20 years. This car feels much more raw than its predecessors. It only has 4 pistons but they are brutally large - the block itself is bigger than a later V10. It runs very smoothly though. The gearbox has 3 gears and no synchronization at all. It happens frequently that it does not take a gear because the cogs are not in position. It also happens that the gearbox drops out of a previously selected gear. It is not very sophisticated and makes the owner feel the technology behind it unlike its successors. (Ok, the 8880 is at least hard to push forward but the 8448 is really very soft.)
I am very happy that I have bought it, it was well worth the 47 Euros it cost (about $85). Even more so if we count the remaining pieces (I will write about it later).
