Lufthansa Boeing 737-500
Uli Meyer 2002, ulimy@freenet.de

This is my favourite airplane. I flew it for
more than seven years as copilot, and now
after a couple of years with airbus I came
back as captain.
I have chosen to build the -500 because it is
the shortest of the 80's 737s and comes close
to the absolut unique design of the original
737-100 designed in the late sixties.
Nicknames for this airplane are Bobby,
ZŠpfchen = suppositorium aeronauticum,
Schweinchen (piglet) or simply "drei sieben".
I was flying also the old 737-200 (no
computers, just clocks), the newer ones
can be easily identified by their large
egg-shaped CFM-56 engines. Modern high-
bypass-engines have larger diameters,
and as the gear of the 737 is so small,
they had to put the engine in this oval
casing to have at least 45cm of air between
the runway and the engines. So you better
don't have to much bank at touchdown...

This eight stud wide LEGOª-version has
- fully movable flight controls (ailerons,
spoiler, leading edge slats, inboard and
outboard flaps at each wing, stabilizer
rudder and elevators)
- a completely functioning retractable
gear (the 737 has no main gear doors,
but: hub-caps....to be seen in a future
picture). The nose gear can be steered
by 90 degrees, but a taxi light and a
connection for tow bar is still missing.
- four minifig-sized passenger doors, 
that can be opened by 180 degrees.
- forward and aft cargo doors, that
open like the original to the inside.

Building airplanes in LEGO is a hard
job because there are almost no right
angles. Especially difficult was the
tail: The vertical fin has so many
different angles...I have chosen the
rudder axis as main coordinate system
to achieve realistic functionality.
This shallow angle is generated by
some highly complex lego technic
inside. The "underwater" part of the
fin needs to have a hole for the
universal joint, that links the two
stabilizer wings mechanically. This
universal joint #9244 makes the
stabilizer axises rectangular to the
conic sides of the tails (build using
hinge bricks #96,#97).

The cockpit side windows are made
from blue transparent 1x2 bricks
without centre studs #3065, so each
can be shifted to meet the conic skin
of the nose. To prevent them from
beeing pushed in too far, there is a 
small loose t-shaped assembly inside.

The passenger doors are built upside
down because there are no roof bricks
without studs. They are operated as
this: Pull out two studs, turn the
hinge by 180 degrees, push the hinge
in again.... I tell you, it's less complex
than a real aircraft door...

Finally I ask you to get those red-green
or better red-blue glasses to see
the anaglyph 3d picture.

This spring the model crashed from
300 feet above ground (in its scale),
there was an investigation of the
National Transport Safety Board. It
revealed that it most probably was
hit by a vacuum cleaner...

I will not fix it.