Fixing the Misfortune Keep Flyer! (Part 1)

You may remember that I’m not too excited by the little flyers that came with the Misfortune Keep. They just feel unfinished and below their potential compared to the glorious main build. I felt right away when assembling them that they need some serious upgrades. Luckily for the sky pirates, I decided to mod their flyer first. It just felt like the much easier job to be honest!

Oh, dear. Looking at this now I have to say I already forgot how unsatisfying the original flyer (left) looks like. It was so tiny and flimsy, it felt like nothing when holding it in your hand. I think the monkey has a good time taunting the pilot over it!

The old flyer (in the description called a “jet”, despite it clearly having a propeller!) was not only not really great looking, it was also pretty flimsy and its wings and tail could been knocked out of position way too easily. I was in every aspect just not a satisfying build.

However, with all its flaws, the pirate flyer still couldn’t compete with the thing the ninjas got. No, I didn’t miss a couple of assembling steps, it really looks that bad:

Ugh.

Yes. That one needs some serious rebuilding, and I have already an idea what to do with it to save it. But for now, lets have a look at what I did with the pirate flyer:

Tada! Its actually a jet now!

I find this is a much more convincing build. It is significantly heftier and bigger, quite sturdy (thanks to some technic parts connecting the engine to the frame), offers much more space for the pilot – and has even a pilot stick!

A look from the rear. The jet exhaust flame is a generous donation from the Raid Zeppelin.

Building this jet, I wanted to stay as close as I could to the original design and colours, while making it a much more exciting build. My vision was right away to turn it into some kind of ridiculously fast little jet fighter. Another challenge was to keep it small enough to allow it to land on the Misfortune Keep.

It took me some attempts to get it right, but eventually I achieved everything I wanted. I could fix all of the flaws the original one had and created a much more pleasant looking vehicle while staying in “theme” with the main build. Yes, I even kept the stud-shooters, because they are fun!

A proud sky pirate with his mean little jet-fighter. Now where is that monkey? Time to teach him a lesson!

To me its obvious that the original flyer was designed with tight constraints regarding piece-count and weight. It is a clever built little thing and I picked up some interesting ideas from it, but it never looked like a proper plane to me. To me this version does – but it would likely have made the whole set some 5-10 Euro more expensive!

Anyway. I had fun modding it and it was another good lesson in building under constraints. It is much easier to just go ahead and build free-style, but designing this tiny jet teaches you really to build efficiently. Every piece counts.