In the last two weeks I've been building a new military model: a US Marine Corps Bell-Boeing MV-22B Osprey. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's the world's first opertional tiltrotor aircraft, a vehicle that can hover like a helicopter for take-offs and landings with its rotors pointing up and, in flight, point them forward and fly like an aircraft.

I've been thinking about building it for years, but there were a few difficult bits that I could never quite figure out how to do until now. One of those is the wing. It has dihedral (it points up at the wingtips) and is swept slightly forward. Normally I'd build something like that by playing around with wegde plates and hinges, but because the engines are mounted at the tips of the wings, on the Osprey that wasn't possible. I chose to build the wings using stepped plates and half-stud offsets instead.

Here it is in helicopter mode.

MV-22B Osprey (9) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

and here it is in aircraft mode with the rotors pointing forward.

MV-22B Osprey (3) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

For rolling take-offs the rotors (and engines) can be set to intermediate positions.

MV-22B Osprey (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

The Osprey was designed to operate from the decks of ships. For compact stowage the aircraft has a complicated wing folding arrangement. This was the second big challenge, but also fun.

MV-22B Osprey (4) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I've seen a fair few LEGO tiltrotor aircraft, but few people seem to have modelled the actual Osprey. I hope you agree that mine looks like the real deal.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited November 20, 201113 yr by Rufus
Indexed

This is amazing as are all your MOCs.

I love how you put all of the functionality of the real aircraft, and were able to sculpt everything so well!

Excellent work!

I came across this on Wikipedia a while back, and fell in love with tiltrotors. This is easily the best I've seen in LEGO.

Thanks for the comments everyone. Tiltrotors are fascinating. I think the Osprey is a bit bloated-looking compared to the earlier XV-15, but it is an interesting bit of kit and was a fun and challenging build.

I may build the odd car now and then, but military models is what I like to do best. Whenever I do I always try to put in just a bit more effort. I feel that if I don't think I can do a better job of recreating an existing vehicle (on a given scale) than what is already out there, I might as well not bother. Obviously what is better or not is largely subjective -some people would consider my model let down badly by the studs- but I am well pleased with the result.

Cheers,

Ralph

Great details, awesome colour scheme, full funcionality, great photo quality. I love it! Congratulations. I'm looking forward to see more from you.

Very cool! So are the engines mechanically connected?

WOW!!!! I love it I love how you made it fully functional and I also love the detail on the cab and how you made it look so realistic.

Great work

Charlie

A great LEGO version of the Osprey Ralph_S. Well done.

Huge & perfect!

I like the military colors and the building tecnique!

Totally cool!

Now this would have to be 'Ralph_S's best creation to date, AWESOME smegging AWESOME - folding wings and rotating engines !

Keep them 'Ralph_S', oh, yeah congrats on being Front Paged too !

Brick On Fly On !

Thanks for the comments everyone. They are much appreciated. The colours are based on the colours of real Ospreys, many of which are a fairly dark bluish grey on top. It really should have three colours, with parts of the sides being a slightly darker grey than what I've used, but there are only so many things yo can do with LEGO.

Very cool! So are the engines mechanically connected?

The rotors are synchronized with an axle running through the whole wing. You can see it in a work-in-progress picture I took about two weeks ago.

MV-22B Osprey Work In Progress 30-11 by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I made a few changes to it between then and now (moving the hinges inboard by one stud each, for instance), but it does show the basic idea.

There is no mechanism to have both propellers/ engines tilt together, but the hinges I used are of a type that sticks at several intermediate positions, making it easy to set both at the same angle. The hinges also had the advantage of having a hole at the location of their axis of rotation, allowing the axle connecting the rotors to run though it. The idea to use them came to me about two weeks ago on my way to work

Now this would have to be 'Ralph_S's best creation to date, AWESOME smegging AWESOME - folding wings and rotating engines !

Keep them 'Ralph_S', oh, yeah congrats on being Front Paged too !

Brick On Fly On !

Thanks. It's always nice to be front-paged and I'm glad you like it. I'd still like to think that my B-1B Lancer is my best creation (it's certainly the biggest), but I'm happy with how the Osprey turned out.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited November 14, 201113 yr by Ralph_S

I enjoy seeing how great designs like this one capture all the detail of the actual thing but also have similar functions to the real thing.I would give this moc a 10 out of 10

Edited November 14, 201113 yr by UCSProductions1

W

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...the resident expert of life-like military aircraft strikes again. Always been a big fan of your work. I'm especially impressed with the wing angles you have accomplished with your Osprey - pronounced dihedral, and subtle forward sweep. Impressive, most impressive! I will concur that your B1-B still reigns, but the Osprey...wait...they're all epic!!

I would love to see an F-111...my favorite warplane. Fantastic work...jealous.

Whoooah...this is amazing...and mechanically operational and synchronized? WOW!! I love your work...truly amazing, inspiring stuff.

@ Ralph_S: Very nice! I was wondering whether you would add this to your "LEGO Military Models" blog. I've seen real Ospreys at airshows where I work, and your model is very realistic!

Fantastic build 'Ralph_S'! You caught all the right lines of the aircraft. Awesome job building the wings and operational engines and congrats on first page status! Well deserved for this great MOC. Keep up the great work

As a pilot, and aviation enthusiast, I'm impressed! I love the functionality the model has, with the tilting rotors, and even the collapsible rotor blades! And the fact that you made it all out of regular bricks is even more impressive. This is one of my favorite MOCs!

Outstanding!

Thank you for all the comments. I am happy that you guys like the model.

I enjoy seeing how great designs like this one capture all the detail of the actual thing but also have similar functions to the real thing.I would give this moc a 10 out of 10

Thank you. I always try to combine the looks with a degree of functionality, certainly when I feel I can get the latter without compromising too much on the former. For this model I knew I could probably get the look more-or-less right without too much difficulty -I've built more complicated shapes in the past- but the functionality would be the real challenge.

W

O

W

...the resident expert of life-like military aircraft strikes again. Always been a big fan of your work. I'm especially impressed with the wing angles you have accomplished with your Osprey - pronounced dihedral, and subtle forward sweep. Impressive, most impressive! I will concur that your B1-B still reigns, but the Osprey...wait...they're all epic!!

I would love to see an F-111...my favorite warplane. Fantastic work...jealous.

Thanks for the compliment. The dihedral was essential, obviously for the looks, but also for the wing stow mechanism. When the wing lies on top of the fuselage the starboard engine needs to sit above the aft fuselage, and as you can see there's not a lot of space.

MV-22B Osprey (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I too quite like the F-111, but lacking one of my own, I'll share the one my friend Ed Diment built a few years ago.

F111 Quarter Extended by Lego Monster, on Flickr

@ Ralph_S: Very nice! I was wondering whether you would add this to your "LEGO Military Models" blog. I've seen real Ospreys at airshows where I work, and your model is very realistic!

Thanks for plugging the blog :-) I've got plenty of ideas, but unfortunately I have a hard time finding the time to write anything for it. I spend a fair bit of time writing stuff at work and in the evenings I simply run out of steam.

As a pilot, and aviation enthusiast, I'm impressed! I love the functionality the model has, with the tilting rotors, and even the collapsible rotor blades! And the fact that you made it all out of regular bricks is even more impressive. This is one of my favorite MOCs!

Thank you very much. I occasionally get criticized for using 'old-fashioned' build techniques, but I don't mind seeing studs and still find stepped plate a very attractive way to create slopes and compound curves. If I;d have forced myself to go for a studless look, I doubt it wold have ended up looking as accurate as it does.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited November 15, 201113 yr by Ralph_S

dang those rotors are huuuge, well done

dang those rotors are huuuge, well done

They're big for propellers, but really not all that large for helicopter rotors. This weekend I'll see that I take a picture of it together with the helicopter that it is replacing, the Sea Knight, to give you a size comparison.

Cheers,

Ralph

Here's a size comparison between the Osprey and one of the helicopters that it is replacing, the CH-46E Sea Knight.

MV-22B Osprey size comparison (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Cheers,

Ralph

Great creation. The folding of the blades and the main wing is awesome. Nice combination of looks and functionality (which is not very common for non-Technic creations).

I really like all your machines! The only one I would change is the sticking up studs of smooth tiles.