Wurger49 Posted May 27 Posted May 27 When the 75406 Kylo Ren’s Command Shuttle was announced, I was taken aback by its high price like everyone else, I thought about what would make the set worthwhile to pick up? I decided to try to build a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird with from the large amounts of black wedge plates inside the set. The SR-71 is a long-range, high-altitude Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was designed with the smallest radar cross-section that Lockheed could achieve in the 1960s. Its design with flattened tapered sides would reflect most radar energy aways from a beam’s place of origin. Curved slopes would be perfect for the model, unfortunately I must make do with plates and tiles, stacking them up, offsetting them to create the tapered shape, like classic LEGO. With the few slopes it did come with, notched curved slopes on trans-clear pieces worked great for the cockpit. The aircraft was painted black, this colour radiated heat from the surface more effectively than the bare metal, reducing the temperature of the skin and thermal stresses on the airframe. My design is nearly all black too, with dark bluish grey highlights within the model due to piece availability. To spice things up slightly, I added a red quarter round piece to the rudder as a group marking, and the silver grille pieces act as the national insignia. The hinge plates allowed for the rudders to be canted inwards. Massive long engines span across the entire delta wings, the ejector nozzle of the command shuttle was used as the inlet of the SR-71, where I used four trans-red tiles to showcase the amount of power each engine can exert to fly the plane at Mach 3. Again, due to the lack of slopes, the nacelles are bult by stacking plates. I had to try a few different wedge plate layouts to get the delta wings to look right. Due to the plate stacking technique used to build this model, the Blackbird is very solid and perfect for swooshing around. I added 2 tiles to the existing LEGO display stand to help it to support the belly of the jet, also swapped a 2x4 black plate and grilles out to the Blackbird. The SR-71 is such a cool futurist looking plane even today, captured my imagination when I was a kid, I hope this jet becomes a part of many collectors’ display. Instructions are on Rebrickable: https://reb.li/m/222516 Quote
Max_Lego Posted May 28 Posted May 28 Looks fantastic, but I do believe it belongs in the Military Section Quote
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