Poe X wing mods: no bands/retractable landing gear/full split wings

[Dameronian]

Hi all, I mocked up a full split wing mechanism earlier with conventional ratcheted hinge plates and retractable rear landing gear, and here's how things turned out. I love the look of the Psiaki wing mods but that's just too fragile for me.

This thing is fully swooshable and doesn't go flappy in either open or closed wing configuration. Closed wing position is nice and gapless and doesn't bend when sitting on the landing gear.

Previous mock up with hinges and landing gear, made with spare parts:

And here's how it turned out:

Landing gear retracted:

Landing gear deployed:

Edited November 16, 2015 by Dameronian

[All in the Reflexes]

Great mod, wings look so much better!

[LegoPercyJ]

Looks spectacular!

[Fuppylodders]

Not only the wings, but the landing gear! Why didnt TLG do this

[anothergol]

if Lego had somehow put the rubber band -in the middle- of the wing, not only it would have been concealed & looked better, I believe it would have eliminated the front gap as well

[Dameronian]

Thanks guys.

The practical thing about these hinge plates is that the open wing configuration is the first click from the closed position, making adjustments really quick and easy.

Last one, group pic with Jek 14s E Wing and a 75105 MF with just light grey plates and thickened mandibles. All have retractable landing gear mods of course, I'm so OCD about that hahaha

Edited October 27, 2015 by Dameronian

[FTG Prime]

Wow it looks awesome !!

[Dameronian]

Last mod: I don't quite like the silver flat surface in the inlets (space air....) and put some black grating in

[FTG Prime]

Hmmm the inlets look a bit better with those grille pieces. Nice

[Dameronian]

Last few tiny mods to make me happier.

-Minor mods to cockpit, with side consoles and seat with headrest (forgot to take a pic)

-shorter front landing strut for better alignment with the retractable rears

-bb8 sits lower

-pattern of orange on the wings a tiny bit more movie accurate

-removed the engine intake grills again...(it adds texture but removes the effect of depth in the intake)

Ps: you may have noticed that I moved lower wings forward one stud, and the uppers backward, for a more movie accurate overall wing profile

Edited October 30, 2015 by Dameronian

[billyamy]

Very nice. I love the joint. Maybe I can try your method to mod my wing's joint.

Edited October 30, 2015 by billyamy

[Tyrell]

if Lego had somehow put the rubber band -in the middle- of the wing, not only it would have been concealed & looked better, I believe it would have eliminated the front gap as well

anothergol, check out my topic: http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=116568

Last one, group pic with Jek 14s E Wing and a 75105 MF with just light grey plates and thickened mandibles. All have retractable landing gear mods of course, I'm so OCD about that hahaha

Dameronian, could you please share some pictures about the Stealth Fighter landing gears MOD?

[Dameronian]

Dameronian, could you please share some pictures about the Stealth Fighter landing gears MOD?

Sure. First off, this fighter is supposedly a version of the E-wing, and I moved the engines and wing canons to positions more in keeping with the E wing design. Also, the astromech is carried internally on an E wing, so I removed the droid compartment on top.

Here we have a beautiful ship, a special forces E Wing of sorts, marred by a lot of bulky and unsightly technic pieces under the wings.

With regards to the landing gear mods, I basically removed all the technic and axle parts below the wing, only retaining the wing hinges. To gain more friction in the wing hinges for manual adjustment, I substituted axles with pins. The wings now have to stay in the landing position on friction alone.

Look closely at the rear landing gear: in its retracted postition it acts as a bump stop at the forward hinge for the downward movement of the wings to attack position.

The bottom of the fighter is now also very flat. Very accurate to the original design and devoid of the cumbersome and bulky mechanism required for the move from landed to attack wing positions.

So the landing gear is basically what locks the wings in attack position by not allowing downward movement any further than an E-wing like angle.

This rear landing gear isn't the most elegant in its landing position. But it is nearly invisible when retracted.

Ps: I moved the front landing gear forward, and basically put the taller front of the Poe X wing on this fighter and vice versa (for better allignment on both fighters)

Landed wing and landing gear position:

Landing gear retracted (and acting as a bump stop for the forward wing hinge):

Gear retracted, wings up:

Wings moved to attack position, a beautiful E wing fighter, which we'll probably never actually get from LEGO, and in a spectular color scheme to boot:

These are the E wing proportions I tried to approximate:

Edited November 2, 2015 by Dameronian

[Dameronian]

Back to the 75102, inspired by Billyamy, plates added in front of the cockpit to add the illusion of the slope on top of the nose

[kermit]

How did you do the landing gears for the MF?

[Dameronian]

How did you do the landing gears for the MF?

I've done the small mod to make the four fixed landing struts retractable, a mod many had already done on the older 7965. I've added a fifth central strut at the front for a bit more accuracy.

[Dameronian]

The two modded fighters discussed here, side by side

[Dameronian]

Latest mod, after looking at some stills from the trailers as well as the Hasbro toys, I realize that the wing underside has more or less the same orange pattern as up top.

Some swapping of internal invisible orange parts yielded enough extra orange plates to do this to the under side of the black upper wings:

The top:

Edited November 3, 2015 by Dameronian

[Tyrell]

Thanks for the Stealth Fighter landing gear explanation, Dameronian.

The fuselage looks indeed way better now, without the wing moving mechanism.

[Dameronian]

Final tweak to wing alignment. Wings almost perfectly flush, and therefore beautifully thin in closed position .

Underside:

Edit: added pic: canons now close as tight as physically possible on top of each other

Edited November 6, 2015 by Dameronian

[Dameronian]

Final mods, and I'm 99% certain I'm not fiddling with this set anymore, I'm satisfied.

- color pattern on wings and from the rear more accurate, with closer match top and bottom;

-front landing gear recessed (flush when retracted);

-engine intake cowling now uniform all around the circumference, without the original straight black slopes on the lower insides.

[Dameronian]

Yesterday's ABC's FA tv trailer shows Poe's X Wing, aka Black Leader, for the first time in action, AFAIK:

[atlas]

Well done ! One suggestion I would make for the rear landing gear would be to use the 1x2 modified plate with male ratchet hinge on top instead of the 1x3 modified hinge tile. It looks like the 1x3 hinge piece poke out a little bit when retracted.

[Dameronian]

Well done ! One suggestion I would make for the rear landing gear would be to use the 1x2 modified plate with male ratchet hinge on top instead of the 1x3 modified hinge tile. It looks like the 1x3 hinge piece poke out a little bit when retracted.

Thank you atlas, for the excellent suggestion!

This is how the landing gear looks after that mod, it is now indeed truly flush when retracted:

[JPN366]

Great work, here's mine. Maybe you will be inspired to further MOD yours.

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=117243