Heinlein's Gay Deciever - In LEGO® Bricks
The
most challenging part of Gay for me was figuring out how her wings worked.
I've already mentioned my fear of ChittyChittyBangBang-ing it, and mounting
the wings on the belly of the ship was going to give me the very look
I was the most anxious to avoid.
Luckily, the text of the book came to the rescue. At one point the other characters sleep under her wings - meaning they were mounted higher up. Good! But how the heck was I supposed to mount them higher?
The solution was to mount them aft of the cabin space, allowing them to be closer to mid-line with regards to Gay's height. This also allowed me to have them retract into the body itself - I could leave a very thin (two stud) support along the middle and have the wings enjoy a full 12 stud width and still be concealed when fully retracted.
We've already seen the wings in that mode. This picture shows the wings at minimal spread.
This next photo shows Gay's wings in hypersonic mode. "Raked back" is the description used in the text most often, so I modeled the look after the swing wings on F-14 fighters. If you look closely, you'll notice that the wings are much wider in this photo than in the previous one. The entire rear panel of the wings (with all the dots facing up) are actually hinged and stowed under the main wing assembly when in roadable mode. As soon as the wings reach a minimum extension, the panels swing up, allowing for a much greater lifting surface.
This is my favorite look for Gay - sleek and streamlined.
Also - if you didn't know that was the l-gun on the roof, you'd never suspect it. Neener.
This shot show the wings fully spread for maximum lift. In this mode Gay can perform as an unpowered glider - although normally she's coasting on the enormous speed generated by reentry or previous use of thrusters.
In all these photos the wheels have been left in "roadable" mode - retracted under the hull. There is text, however, that describes the wheels in "down and locked" positioning. This leads me to infer that the wheels extend for landing gear. Not exactly the easiest thing to mock up in LEGO. I had already allocated two bricks in height under the deck for wheel assembly - making that assembly extend was a minor engineering feat - and a minor miracle.
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