OK, I’m still working on a name for my newest spacecraft. When I started playing with the design I was trying to recreate a ship I organically built in the early 1980s. It was my Classic Space take on the SnowSpeeder from Empire Strikes back. Oh how I wish Lego had Star Wars sets in my childhood, but their devious plot worked – I have spent the last 20 years (now that I can afford to buy them myself) collecting much of their never ending Star Wars sets. Anyway, i digress.
The original craft was similar to this, except in some ways more alike the original SnowSpeeder. It was a two person ship – pilot facing front and tail gunner facing rear. I believe my original model had an open canopy, and in hindsight was much like SBD-3 Dauntless Dive Bombers from WWII. Another aside, it was years after the Star Wars series began that I began to understand all the ties and references to WWII symbology. And again I digress.
So I remembered the original design featured up-sloped bricks on the lower half and 6-wide 33 degree slopes on the top half – likely from the couple of original Classic Space sets. The rear of the original craft featured downward sloping wings, again, likely blue 33 degree slopes – because that’s what I had back then.
I do recall the original craft had no obvious signs of propulsion – it flew by Lego magic – which it turns out is incredibly efficient and environmentally friendly.
So the “new” design features most of those features with some marked differences. First, both crew face forward and the weapons officer (lower) relies entirely on instruments in lieu of a rear view. The pilot sits higher and the canopy does provide a 360 degree view, but with all the advanced censors embedded in the skin of the craft (Lego magic) he doesn’t have to rely solely on his sight. The cockpit is closed and propulsion is provided by two internally fueled super-duper-hyper-sonic rocket type things.
From a mission perspective, this is intended to be a close to surface type support space craft. Think an A-10 for Mars. The primary armaments are two forward facing laser cannons, which ironically make a wonderfully reassuring Brrrrrrrrrrrrr sound when firing the canons to support ground forces.
One element which I am not satisfied is the landing skid beneath the primary cabin – from the side view it makes the ship appear way too bulky, which wasn’t the intent but was the result.
So what do you think? I have provided instructions for other designs. Is it worth producing instructions for the Space Frog? And what is a better, more ferocious name for such a menacing craft?
In the meantime, live long and prosper and don’t run out of toilet paper.
