This is my version of the ‘Porco Rosso’ flying boat fighter from the lovely animated movie by Hayao Miyazaki. I was actually a little hesitant to tackle this one as there are already at least three Lego versions on the internet, but I was curious as to how my approach would lend itself to this project. I think I’ve posted enough vintage aircraft designs by now that no one will accuse me of plagiarizing someone else’s construction technique.

My second reason for hesitation was that all my other aircraft are scale models and (as far as I can tell), this aircraft never actually existed. It was conceptualized for the movie by Miyazaki himself. I’ll be delighted to be proven wrong on this point, however, as such a beautiful aircraft really ought to have existed. There does seem to be some genuine confusion about the reality of this aircraft, largely because ‘Savoia S.21’ is a real designation of an actual single seat flying boat (though of a rather different bi-plane configuration).

I have built it to the same scale as my other seaplanes and intend to partner it with the Curtis R3C also from the movie.

I know the wing should be red, but you can consider this a mock-up. I’ll do an all-red update when I manage to obtain the parts I need.