Obliterator Bricks
LEGO Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat MOC
Hey everyone – despite the fact that my activity has been nothing short of sporadic as of late, I’m finally happy to present to you all my custom LEGO rendition of a Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat from World War II!
The F4F Wildcat was Grumman’s first production monoplane naval fighter. As with many ‘firsts’ in the aviation industry, particularly during the interwar/WWII years, development was expectedly rocky. Before Grumman’s design would be able to be chosen by the Navy as their primary carrier-based frontline fighter, it had to be deemed superior to the reigning one: the Brewster F2A Buffalo. While the initial prototype was marginally quicker than the Buffalo, it possessed inferior maneuvrability to an intolerable degree, and was not proceeded with at this state. However, after fabricating the XF4F-3 prototype and equipping it with the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 “Twin Wasp” engine, Grumman was given a production order to see the resulting F4F-3 production model Wildcats in action with the Navy and Marine Corps, in the end beating out Brewster’s aircraft. Particularly in the early years of the war, it was used extensively – primarily in the Pacific Theatre. While noted as relatively inferior to its common rival there – the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero – USN and USMC pilots fought hard with these Wildcats, developing tactics and learning from hard-earned lessons gained from violent aerial encounters with the enemy. With the determination from the aviators, the F4F had a cumulative kill-to-death ratio of a little under 7:1.
The model itself was fairly challenging to design for me. Incorporating realistic features as seen on real aircraft (for this there’s the 5-degree dihedral, folding wings, and fully retractable landing gear that come to mind) is never an easy challenge. In fact, the wings when folded cannot hold themselves off the ground without assistance, nor can the model sit comfortably on its landing gear without demanding additional support. However, the fact that I was able to work these kinetic features in and still somehow have the model look the part is something I’m pretty proud of. I did design it digitally initially, and ordered the parts through BrickLink, making changes to the digital rendition as I saw fit when the bricks were in hand. All in all, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out (for now), and hope you all like it. Comments and feedback are much appreciated!
LEGO Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat MOC
Hey everyone – despite the fact that my activity has been nothing short of sporadic as of late, I’m finally happy to present to you all my custom LEGO rendition of a Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat from World War II!
The F4F Wildcat was Grumman’s first production monoplane naval fighter. As with many ‘firsts’ in the aviation industry, particularly during the interwar/WWII years, development was expectedly rocky. Before Grumman’s design would be able to be chosen by the Navy as their primary carrier-based frontline fighter, it had to be deemed superior to the reigning one: the Brewster F2A Buffalo. While the initial prototype was marginally quicker than the Buffalo, it possessed inferior maneuvrability to an intolerable degree, and was not proceeded with at this state. However, after fabricating the XF4F-3 prototype and equipping it with the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 “Twin Wasp” engine, Grumman was given a production order to see the resulting F4F-3 production model Wildcats in action with the Navy and Marine Corps, in the end beating out Brewster’s aircraft. Particularly in the early years of the war, it was used extensively – primarily in the Pacific Theatre. While noted as relatively inferior to its common rival there – the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero – USN and USMC pilots fought hard with these Wildcats, developing tactics and learning from hard-earned lessons gained from violent aerial encounters with the enemy. With the determination from the aviators, the F4F had a cumulative kill-to-death ratio of a little under 7:1.
The model itself was fairly challenging to design for me. Incorporating realistic features as seen on real aircraft (for this there’s the 5-degree dihedral, folding wings, and fully retractable landing gear that come to mind) is never an easy challenge. In fact, the wings when folded cannot hold themselves off the ground without assistance, nor can the model sit comfortably on its landing gear without demanding additional support. However, the fact that I was able to work these kinetic features in and still somehow have the model look the part is something I’m pretty proud of. I did design it digitally initially, and ordered the parts through BrickLink, making changes to the digital rendition as I saw fit when the bricks were in hand. All in all, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out (for now), and hope you all like it. Comments and feedback are much appreciated!