The air force of DIetterr89

It does not happen very often that there is a post about a single person's creations, but it is worth making an exception today.

As I started to build war planes a while ago, my goal was to find a scale that is the smallest possible,  but still gives me enough room to incorporate many interesting details. I have settled at 1:48. This is the scale at which the MiG-15 and the Bf-109 has been built, and this will be the scale for the next few too. I have never dreamt that it would be worth going smaller.

But the planes of Dieterr89 prove that it is more than worth it. He built an entire air force at 1:70. This is a Messerschmitt 109. It represents the shape and colors of the original aircraft as truly as possible:

Its opponent from the Eastern front is a Lavochkin La-5. This is a truely unique build, you cannot find many Soviet WWII planes built from LEGO. To make it more special, it has a radial engine:

In the case of the desert Ju-87 Stuka it was an extra challenge to build the fixed landing gear and the angled wing:

Its "attacker" is a Spitfire, also in desert camouflage:

As the war progressed, Mustangs started to fly their long range escort missions with jettisonable external tanks:

Its opponent is one of the first jet fighters, a Messerschmitt Me-262. I think this looks even better than the other ones:

We left two modern planes to the end. This is an F-16 Fighting Falcon:

Its pair is a Soviet-build Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29. Notice the nose bending down a bit:

Excellent collection, let's hope there will be more soon!

News Saturday

There was so much going on in the past few weeks that for today we transform ourselves into a news portal and give you an update about recent happenings.

Competitions:

• As in recent years, the Lego Military Build Competition has started. This years categories do not favor aircraft so much as during the past years, but for sure we will see lots of excellent creations. The first submissions are on the way, the deadline is July 10th.

LEGO products:

• The Architecture line has a new member, the 21018 United Nations Headquarters. Eurobricks has already posted a few hi-res images.
• TechnicBRICKs has covered the full Technic line up for 2H with the B models too. The biggest news is the 42008 Service Truck that stands out from the other sets with its color.

MOCs:

• Mad Physicist continues his coverage of the eighties, this time he built Knight Ridert.
• bobalexander has built this classic light blue Porsche 917 in Gulf livery (via the Lego Car Blog).
• Norton74 is the builder of this Scania truck. (via legozz)
• Sheepo's newest model is a Lotus Sevennel (via the Lego Car Blog).

Developments in the air force: Supermarine Spitfire

Building awesome models is cool, but I think it is even cooler to build several awesome models that match each other in scale, let it be about train engines by depi, cars, aircraft or something else. As I rebuilt the MiG-15 and finished the Messerschmitts I knew there will be more.

The new member is a Supermarine Spitfire Mark Vb. This was the last version with characteristic three-blade propeller of the early versions.

This is my first plane that uses a camouflage scheme. I think the dark green-dark bluish gray combination fits it quite nicely. It required more thinking than the previous planes as not every brick I needed was available in all the colors. I decided to build the markings from bricks as long as I can, I am quite happy with this one. With a USAF or Soviet plane I would have been in more trouble.

I was not happy with the existing Bf-109s either. As Dieterr89 pointed out, the wings were too narrow, especially when compared to the Spitfire. The Spitfire has a larger wing, but not by that much. The other problem was that the front section of the body was too wide. As I built the original version I was already thinking about how else can it be done, but the real inspiration came only while building the Spitfire.

So I rebuild the Swiss and the Hungarian Bf-109 as well. This was a serious rebuild, only the tail, the nosecone and the landing gear stayed intact. The wing is a bit longer now and the fuselage has been rebuilt completely together with the canopy.

I am much more content with it now. It looks like recently I need several iterations with all my models. With the Spitfire I am happy as it is, I hope it's going to stay like that.

Behind the Iron Curtain

After the many tanks and fighters let's see something more peaceful. There is no Iron Curtain for a while, but many of us still remember it. April's heme of the month on LUGNuts was "Behing the Iron Curtain". As my old Trabant proves this theme was one of my favorites.

Mad Physicist has built a quite recent police car from Moscow. As one of the commenters says "Ugly car in reality, and yours is true replica :)". Well, there is quite a bit of truth in that.

This fantasctic Ural motorcycle by Lino M was featured on Brothers Brick too. I have not seen this in real life a lot. The Soviet flag gives it an extra charm.

This ZISZ 110 from rabidnovaracer is pretty cool too. To me this car model represents one of the darkest ages of communism as it was used during the 50s during the most avid terror by the the highest ranked people in the party in several countries.

This is a somewhat friendlier piece, the luxury car from Chechoslovakia with a V8 engine: the Tatra 603 from lego911:

Rolic has built this Latvia RAF-2203 (yes, RAF stands for Riga Autobus Factory in this case). I have seen plenty of these as a kid.

Of course I could not stand not to build something. The Trabi has existed for a while, but the LUGNuts challenge made me realize that I did not take any photos yet. Yet another problem to solve was proportions: the old model was simply too flat. Luckily I have found a way to inject two layers of plates to make it taller without a major rebuilt. I am much happier with the result now:

I wanted to build something truly new too. As during last month I used up most of my Bricklink budget already, this Ikarus 260 was built on the computer only:

The front is quite similar to some existing Ikarus builds, not too different from the solution of ainex. I tried to build the doors, windows and the rear lights a bit more special. Hope you like it!

Clicking any of the images above will bring you to more photos.