Good morning to everybody!

While not having big experience in Lego building (actually, it's only ~6 months after I've bought my first set in my adulthood), I'm interested in aviation, and, therefore, I decided to build something aviation-related. General idea of build was to create machine, similar to Douglas or Goldhofer heavy towbarless tug:

After I will complete this build, I'm going to rework my 42025 Cargo plane into one with longer landing gear legs, to make it towable by tug, I'm going to show in this topic.

For now, mechanical part is almost complete (only two remaining things are mounting switches for turning on battery box and switching functions for M-motor), but bodywork is in the earliest stage - it is more about "set some borders and see overall size". I also still working on front axis "stability" - due to huge size and weight of model, after driving/steering wheels are standing not so straight vertical, so some reinforcement still needed.

Functions:

2 L-motors for driving

1 Servo for steering

1 M-motor for raising cabin and positioning front part of landing gear leg "holder" (via gearbox, manually switched)

1 XL-motor for opening/closing beams, holding landing gear leg (I was actually ran off motors, so used XL here, even had to use clutch gear to prevent breaking other gears in open/close system)

Planned manual functions:

1. Opening doors in cabin

2. Opening motor bay doors

And finally some photos of "what was done" (and a big sorry for mess on table:) ). After I will clearly define "what should be done in bodywork", more photos will appear.

That looks really good already, keep it up :-)

Edited January 11, 201510 yr by LeocornoProductions

Really interesting MOC you got there, never seen such a thing before build in LEGO.

That looks like a really good start.

Progressing nicely! I thought about making one before, but wasn't sure where to start and gave up. Can't wait to see more!

I thought about making one before, but wasn't sure where to start and gave up

Actually, this one is my second try to do such a thing.

The biggest issue (when speaking about this kind of Lego machine in this size) was a bending - due to huge weight back parts tended to bend/collapse to center, as far there shouldn't be any transverse supporting elements to give enough space for landing gear to enter. That was actually the reason, why I decided to use 2 L-motors for driving wheels separately - transmission from one XL-motor suffered much from bending, it all tended to clicking gears, so, finally I've decided to use one motor per rear wheel to drive - shorter axes and less gearing provided much more comfortable driving.

Maybe it's only my wrong opinion, but it seems too big compared with 42025 isn't it? Anyway it looks very good for now!

but it seems too big compared with 42025 isn't it?

Yes, it is :) In general, 42025 suits not so well for towbarless tugging - it has short landing gear legs, like many cargo planes have, but I'm planning to rebuild it into something like Saab 340/HS 748/Il-14 (or even something like Lockheed Connie, if I will have all the needed parts and inspiration :) ), where landing gear legs are much longer.

Some updates on bodywork, it goes not so fast, but main panelling seems to be done (sorry for horrible photoshopping around, really wanted to hide mess in my room :) ). And for now it seems, that it will be necessary to buy at least 1-2 big A0 paper sheets to make background for photographing this monstrosity.

Wow, one of the biggest model in the contest! Nice progress. How heavy is it?

How heavy is it?

~3 kilos. It's big, but there is quite a lot of hollow space (f.e. near wheel arcs of front wheels - these wheels need enormous space around to turn :)).

I like the mug. It's that kind of details that gives MOC it's soul!

Great Job!

Edited January 21, 201510 yr by Omikron

Beautiful build !

Care to show how it works ?

That just looks so stunningly technical and well made. Well done!

That looks awesome, what a beast!

Looks massive. I really like it

Care to show how it works ?

I really need to prepare some background and "sample airplane" (think, will create some "draft" structure of plane or trailer with imitaition of plane front leg to show how it works)