On August 16, 2024 I got in another building session, wasn’t long after my previous one, but took me quite a while to get back to blogging about my Lego builds. Wanted to be out enjoying the nice weather and spending time with my daughter, as most of my building happens in the evenings after she is in bed.
Bag 10 was about building the forward wheel well, which includes the mechanism for raising and lowering the nose landing gear, and accommodates it into a recessed area. Concorde’s landing gear was longer than most to ensure that the the engines, set far back on the delta wing, would clear the ground during take-off and landing. In the top pictures you can see the gear mechanism that when the drive shaft is turned will lower and raise the front wheel.
Bag 11 is reinforcing the connection of the previous two built components, enclosing all the axel and mechanics for the landing gear. This then gets connected to the delta wing completing the wing structure with the start of the front fuselage. When travelling at cruising speed, Concorde’s airframe would heat up to the point that the aircraft would stretch by 6-10 inches (15-25 cm).
Bag 12 is building the cabin area where passengers would be seated and you can see in the top view below also includes toilets, luxury amenities and fine cuisine for the 100 passengers to accompany breathtaking views from the edge of space at 60,000 ft. (18,288 m). It is neat how it includes these details plus building the piece (Bag 13) that would cover the top of the fuselage (seen in the feature image).
Transitioning to the bottom, the orange pieces (that throughout the build represent temporary pieces) come off and bricks are added to go across the various connected pieces for reinforcement. After this the bottom is built up nicely with the big square piece and various other pieces to give the smooth bottom look.
Bag 13 also included the addition of the axel piece that will make up the tail and be used for landing gear function as well as tire assembly and install. This includes the pieces to allow for the mechanics of the landing gear, nose wheel length, light under the nosewheel (a nice detail), etc. After that the plane is flipped over and the pieces put in place to enclose the cabin.
If wanting to see the cabin need to remove the middle section of the fuselage to reveal the rear cabin with passenger seats inspired by the original 1970’s design. This would involve removing the smaller smooth pieces sandwiched by the two agony nipple pieces, four in total.
Bag 14 was about building the right engine, as seen from the back of the plane looking to the front when upside down. You can see below the top of the engine has some color to it, but this is the part that is attached to the main fuselage (so becomes unseen) by snapping in.
Concorde’s four famous Olympus engines propelled the aircraft to twice the speed of sound.
