Video of 6.8m/ 23'-Long USS Intrepid Aircraft Carrier

[Captain Green Hair]

This is simply brilliant, Ed's ship and your amazing planes to go with it.

I should go and see this live sometime, and I guess I should bring a bucket to stop my drool from going on the floor.

We've done other collaborative projects in the past, back when I still was living in the UK. Now that I'm back in the Netherlands collaborative projects require a different way of working. He'd seen my FM1 Hellcat and liked it, so when we started discussing him building an aircraft carrier, I suppose it seemed natural that I'd design the planes and make instructions for them. I was happy to be able to contribute to this project.

Since that is the case, it might be a fun idea to arrange a get together with some other Dutch Afols?

[prateek]

Wow. Is this really 1/4 ton? That is insane. I don't think I've seen that much Lego IRL ever in my life!

[CP5670]

This is utterly massive. Unlike other models of this size it also has a fully tiled surface, which gives it a great look. I would love to see it in person too.

My current half a year long building delay however, is mainly caused by writing up papers and my PhD thesis.

I'm in the same situation and don't have enough time for the bricks anymore. I have still been building various Technic and Creator alternate models though, as that takes much less time than planning and building MOCs.

[Edmond Dantes]

It's a bit dubious whether it actually is the biggest LEGO ship ever built, but I think it is the biggest built by AFOLs using their own LEGO-collection.

The ship has been making the rounds on the internet, with a blog post on The Brothers Brick and Gizmodo

It's also been posted on EB before, as I just found out.

The real ship was about 266 m long, which at a scale of 1/40 means the model is about 830 studs. It's bigger than the Harry S. Truman built by Malle Hawking (even though that is also intended for minifigs and a real Nimitz class carrier is considerably longer than an Essex class carrier such as Intrepid), or the fantastic Yamato by JunLego.

Ed started it about 9 months ago, after taking apart his model of HMS Hood. I was one of the people who tried to convince him to build an aircraft carrier rather than yet another battleship and in return he asked me to design the aircraft to go on it. He built the ship together with his wife Annie. She also built most of the planes using instructions I made. I posted several topics here on eurobricks about the aircraft while I was working on them and you can download instructions for some of them.

The ship looks great in the pictures, but they still don't quite do it justice. We hadn't seen the whole thing together, with all the planes and guns until we finished setting it up at the Great Western LEGO Show and we were pretty much gobsmacked by it. I've spent much of my weekend walking circles around it and answering hundreds of questions by the public, all with a big happy grin on my face I'm sure.

I can also tell you it's a heavy piece of kit. It is modular so that it can be moved in a van. I loaded it with Ed on Friday morning before the show and unloaded it together with him on Sunday evening after we got back. Fortunately at the event itself there were a lot of people who helped us out with the heavy lifting. Both of us were absolutely knackered afterwards.

I still intend to write a blog post about the thing and the event on my own blog, but have been insanely busy at work since I came back from the UK.

Cheers,

Ralph

Did you ever make instructions for the Avenger?

[Ralph_S]

This is simply brilliant, Ed's ship and your amazing planes to go with it.

I should go and see this live sometime, and I guess I should bring a bucket to stop my drool from going on the floor.

Since that is the case, it might be a fun idea to arrange a get together with some other Dutch Afols?

Getting together sometime sounds like fun. I did join De Bouwsteen earlier this year, but so far have only made it to one meeting.

This is utterly massive. Unlike other models of this size it also has a fully tiled surface, which gives it a great look. I would love to see it in person too.

It's not just for looks in this case. The deck had to be tiled in order to be able to move the planes across it easily.

Did you ever make instructions for the Avenger?

No. We only have five or six of them. I built the prototype, built a copy together with Ed when he came over to the Netherlands earlier this year and he used that copy as an example for building the rest. So, we didn't need instructions for it.

Cheers,

Ralph

[Nikola Bathory]

I just found this on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13139918

[Brickdoctor]

That is Legomonster's Intrepid carrier.

[brickmack]

That thing is HUGE. Very detailed. I like those little planes.

[Siegfried]

That is Legomonster's Intrepid carrier.

Indeed it is. I've just merged a few topics on this MOC.

[Ralph_S]

That thing is HUGE. Very detailed. I like those little planes.

There's a nice video on youtube as well. Ed explains how he built it (helped by his wife). I designed the planes.

Project Intrepid aircraft by Mad physicist, on Flickr

It's fantastic that it is in the actual Intrepid museum. Sadly I couldn't go.

Cheers,

Ralph