Heinlein's Gay Deciever - In LEGO® Bricks

Side doorHere's Gay with her port door open. The book makes reference to a "step" being mounted on the inside of the door, so the white and grey bricks provide that detail. The white brick at the top of the door actually cuts into the viewable area of the window in half, but you have to make some sacrifices when working at this scale.

Just inside the main door you can make out the bulkhead door to the aft storage area. I put this on the driver's side as this was the most logical place for it. Plus, in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls they move a lot of equipment through the driver's side door, through the bulkhead, and into the space warp in the back (more on that in a bit.) So there needed to be a pretty clear path for them to follow. There is also mention of the person directly behind the pilot going directly to the bulkhead door without having to pass by other people - so it's a logical guess.

On a design note, the doors are eight studs wide - necessitated by the width of the window (six studs) and the hinge plates (two, each with a four-stud width) I used to make the doors work. There is a two stud overlap of door and bulkhead at the rear - a compromise between making the cockpit tiny and using the pieces I had to work with.

Starboard doorFrom the starboard the design is the same. Gay is very nearly bilaterally symmetrical, although some of the roof details aren't mirrored.

Instead of the bulkhead door, this side has a storage box that holds the two items mentioned as being available in the cabin - a camera and a pair of binoculars. I'll show that in more detail in a bit. This was the best use of the "two wasted studs" of cabin space for this side of the craft.

Rear AngleThis photo of Gay's rear shows her atmospheric thrusters. There was no detail on these that I could find, so I just crammed as many engines as I could into the available space.

Mounted just below the exhausts, and just above the wings, are Gay's countermeasures. The cylinders on the ends of the grey assembly are removable, and represent chaff canisters. There are spares (in white) just to the side.

When the altimeter read four klicks, I cut everything - power, transponder, the works - while hitting a button that dropped chaff, and let her go ballistic. I didn't know that anyone was tracking us - I didn't want to find out. - page 21

On the side of the right wing you can see one of Gay's radar/microwave eyes (the two round tubes). The aft eye is just under the countermeasure array.

"Gay has sidelookers, eyes fore and aft, belly and umbrella - has she not?" - page 142



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