Buffalo Airways. Not a name traditionally associated with brand new aircraft.
The airline’s fame, in the Northwest Territories and beyond through TV show Ice Pilots NWT, is based on its dedication to an iconic fleet of Douglas DC-3 aircraft – each built more than 70 years ago.
However, new DC-3s are set to roll off the production line. The only difference is they’ll be built from around 600 pieces of Lego.
Mikey McBryan, the face of the NWT airline, launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding page for the project on Tuesday with an initial goal of raising $5,000 to make Buffalo’s own limited-edition DC-3 Lego sets.
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By 5pm local time, almost $30,000 – nearly six times the target – had been pledged.
‘Bummed out’
Backers are asked to commit a payment of $269 or more in return for a full Buffalo Airways DC-3 Lego set, complete with instruction manual, stickers and custom box. The Kickstarter page claims the finished product, to be delivered in May 2018, will boast a 55 cm wingspan and retractable landing gear.
Two hundred sets will be made by Ichiban Toys, a third party which builds custom Lego sets but is in no way associated with the Lego company itself.
Buffalo Airways previously tried to have Lego itself build a DC-3 set, in 2014, only to miss out in an official contest on Lego’s website.
“We narrowly missed our target and the project was dropped. We were so bummed out,” wrote McBryan on the new project’s Kickstarter page. “Thousands of people from all over the world voted for the DC-3 design. When it did not make the cut, we felt that we had let a lot of people down.
“So in September 2017, I decided to once and for all make a production DC-3 set out of real Lego pieces. I want to share it with the world so anyone could have one.”
