42181 VTOL Heavy Cargo Spaceship LT81

[Maaboo the Witch]

39 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

I have my paws on this.

You possess the Space Osprey?

[Ngoc Nguyen]

1 hour ago, Maaboo the Witch said:

You possess the Space Osprey?

Indeed.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

Overview of functions:

 

Black 20 gears drive new knob gears on both side, which lower sides legs. It is also connected through the red 16L link to lower another leg in the back. The landing legs can only lock one way, when they are lowered. In other words, they can lock themselves from collapsing, but when they are retracted, there's nothing locking them, so they tend to lower by gravity by themselves.

Blue 20 gears connect through 24z gears, which drive 3 16z gears and lead to the axle going through the red connector in front of the leg. 

Red liftarm moves the DBG 3x19 frame in the bottom, which moves a pair of scissor liftarms. The liftarms hook can also lock only one way. When retracted, they lock so that they dont lower themselves automatically, but there's no locking when they are fully extended.

 

Edited February 27 by Ngoc Nguyen

[R0Sch]

You can see the functions more detailed in these animated gifs:
https://www.brothers-brick.com/2024/02/27/lego-technic-42181-vtol-heavy-cargo-spaceship-lt81-super-swooshable-review/

Can't wait to get these Technic space sets at 40% off.

[Timewhatistime]

We see two of the new type grey knob gears (with 45° offset) in the image. I believe we all appreciate that TLG provides us with this attractive part...

...but is it really necessary in this set? I don't believe so, because the axle is driven by two of the 20 teeth double bevel gears, so the axle's orientation is pretty irrelevant.

[AVCampos]

Most likely it's for fanservice: to give us more of this new part. A similar thing happened when teal returned: it was commonly present in pieces buried inside sets, for which colour didn't affect the final result.

[gyenesvi]

14 minutes ago, Timewhatistime said:

...but is it really necessary in this set? I don't believe so, because the axle is driven by two of the 20 teeth double bevel gears, so the axle's orientation is pretty irrelevant.

I guess even if it's not necessary here (it is probably in some other set), they want to use it more frequently to amortize the cost of creating a new part. This model also uses new truss pieces from the crane, which are probably not irreplaceable here either, though might make the frame construction simpler / more streamlined, but definitely help with decreasing the cost of that part, which otherwise would rarely be really required. So I welcome this kind of part re-usage. (I actually wonder about the other way around, why don't they make more parts that could be used in many places, even though they are not that often really required, such as a 4L beam.. surely they could easily amortize the cost of such moulds)

Edited March 1 by gyenesvi

[Ngoc Nguyen]

41 minutes ago, Timewhatistime said:

...but is it really necessary in this set? I don't believe so, because the axle is driven by two of the 20 teeth double bevel gears, so the axle's orientation is pretty irrelevant.

It actually is. At the contracted position, the axle conencted to the black 20z gear needs to be at a right angle to keep the rear leg contracted. At the same time, the axles driving the side legs need to be at a right angle too,

[SNIPE]

I' checked the set inventory on rebrickable and on lego instructions, and this "new small beam" is no where to be seen, but in the press release video he said that the space ship has a new small beam that wehave to find ourselves...

There isn't even the new connector that comes in the john deere combine harvester

This is the stupidest bunch of 1H sets I have ever seen!!

and here is the bar:

Edited March 1 by SNIPE

[R0Sch]

2 hours ago, SNIPE said:

I' checked the set inventory on rebrickable and on lego instructions, and this "new small beam" is no where to be seen, but in the press release video he said that the space ship has a new small beam that wehave to find ourselves...

There isn't even the new connector that comes in the john deere combine harvester

This is the stupidest bunch of 1H sets I have ever seen!!

Tragic.

[LvdH]

2 hours ago, SNIPE said:

I' checked the set inventory on rebrickable and on lego instructions, and this "new small beam" is no where to be seen, but in the press release video he said that the space ship has a new small beam that wehave to find ourselves...

There isn't even the new connector that comes in the john deere combine harvester

This is the stupidest bunch of 1H sets I have ever seen!!

and here is the bar:

Are you 100% sure they meant a "new small beam" in this set specifically?
Because this piece is in one of the space sets and new for 2024.
https://rebrickable.com/parts/3167/technic-beam-2-x-3-thick-90-offset-centre-beam-hole/72/

[vascolp]

7 hours ago, R0Sch said:

Can't wait to get these Technic space sets at 40% off.

That!!

And also the dune ornithopter which is a incredible technic set, although not very mentioned around here.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

2 minutes ago, vascolp said:

And also the dune ornithopter which is a incredible technic set, although not very mentioned around here.

Because "technic"-cally, it's not Technic 

But I have a Technic-fied 10327 ornithopter in development. 

[vascolp]

6 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

Because "technic"-cally, it's not Technic 

But I have a Technic-fied 10327 ornithopter in development. 

Back in november, inspired by some of the available images, I tried to build some ornithopter like thing motorized (PU of course ) and it is very funny... although still a bit too big. Maybe I can make a simple movie with that. 

I know about your developement, lets see it!

[SNIPE]

Here is the reference:

 

[Davidz90]

3 hours ago, vascolp said:

And also the dune ornithopter which is a incredible technic set

I agree, IMO it is a technic set, and one of the better ones recently. I'm working on a motorized version right now, although wing flapping takes a lot of power; that's why regular helicopters are somewhat more practical :P

[kodlovag]

I just checked the price of this set at webshops, and it's available at 80 EUR. It is interesting, that this price range literally empty. There is the Kawasaki and the new Eart-Moon model in this price range, but both are much smaller in piece count. Sometimes the FordGT is available at 80 EUR, but during January it was 120. Sets with comparable piece count are 50% to 100% more expensive. All licenced cars.

This set looks actually cheap. I have never in my life said that any Lego set is cheap. I always feel they are just a bit (or much) too expensive. How is this possible? Is the licence so expensive? Are the tires so expensive :) ?

[Stereo]

6 hours ago, kodlovag said:

Are the tires so expensive :) ?

I've made a lot of sense of set pricing by assuming $3 US for small technic tires up to about $8 for large ones.  Of course other large pieces like turntables and the 15 diameter rings in the Earth-Moon set are also a few dollars each.  So for larger sets adding $30-$50 which easily steps it up a price bracket compared to airplanes.  I don't know how much it reflects their actual costs to make them, or if it's just that large pieces means larger boxes & different packing process.

[Auroralampinen]

Here is my review of this set

[Auroralampinen]

2 hours ago, Auroralampinen said:

Here is my review of this set

And yes if you shake the model the landing gear will come down so i think somekind of worm gear mechanism would been better in here

[HydroWorld Outlook]

The cool part is, since the 42181's engine pods can rotate a full 360 degrees, it would allow for relatively quick and easy modification to a V-22 Osprey or other tiltrotor aircraft just by replacing the pod thrusters with rotors, swapping the landing legs for landing ger, and maybe replacing the rearmost engines with a tail boom. This adds a lot of value to the set, and for sure I will be getting it. 

Edited March 3 by HydroWorld Outlook

[Maaboo the Witch]

Brickset review is up.

[kbalage]

On 3/1/2024 at 10:15 PM, SNIPE said:

Here is the reference:

Lee was pointing to the model he designed, the 42178 Surface Space Loader, and the "new small beam" should be this one. Although for us it first appeared in 42168, but that's also a 2024 set so it wasn't out yet when this video was recorded back in September 2023. 

By the way, I saw a bit of confusion about the designer of the VTOL - it is Uwe Wabra. Lee Magpili designed 42178, and Samuel Tacchi was the designer of 42180.

And here is my review of this amazingly swoooooshable set:

 

[R0Sch]

1 hour ago, kbalage said:

By the way, I saw a bit of confusion about the designer of the VTOL - it is Uwe Wabra. Lee Magpili designed 42178, and Samuel Tacchi was the designer of 42180.

Cheers! https://brickset.com/bricklists/author-R0Sch

[SNIPE]

3 hours ago, R0Sch said:

Cheers! https://brickset.com/bricklists/author-R0Sch

Ohh, the surface space  loader has 1 , I see now :), well, this set is certainly better than 42180 at least.
could you do me a favor if possible, and show the 42145 set but with the dune orthcopter blades attached ?

I really wanna see that (!badly!).

regards, Snipe

Edited March 6 by SNIPE