Artist Ed Diment used 250,000 lego bricks to assemble an amazing 22-foot-long, 550 pound model of the USS Intrepid. The model USS Intrepid is nearly 4.5 feet high and 4.5 feet wide, it took three people (with a number of other helpers) over 9 months to build!

You can see it for real in the USS Intrepid Museum in New York where it is currently berthed.

The Real USS Intrepid

Aircraft carriers originally saw use during the first half of the 20th Century. In the build up to the First World War – and, indeed, throughout that conflict – many nations were engaged in an urgent race to develop new and game-changing technology. War was looming in Europe, and nothing that might offer an advantage over the enemy was off the table.

Just four years before hostilities broke out in 1914, an American aviator named Eugene Burton Ely became the first pilot to take off in a plane from the deck of a warship. Launching from a United States Navy vessel, he made history. Then, less than a decade later, the British HMS Argus became the first flattop ship in 1918 that was capable of launching and recovering a naval aircraft.

These new and innovative vessels soon proved their worth. They were versatile and efficient, and went on to become a fixture of navies throughout the years and across the world. By the time war in Europe broke out again, 21 years later, many larger and more technologically advanced aircraft carriers had been constructed.

USS Intrepid is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers that was built during the Second World War for the United States Navy.

After being commissioned in August 1943, the USS Intrepid fought in a number of battles in the Pacific War, the most notable of which was the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On April 16th, 1945 she was hit by a Kamikaze which took the life of 8 members of her crew. Damage control parties were able to extinguish the fires quickly and within an hour airplanes were able to land again.

After World War II she was decommissioned, but in the early 1950s she was recommissioned as an attack carrier and later an antisubmarine carrier

She served mainly in the Atlantic but participated in the Vietnam War too. Some of her most important achievements include being the recovery ship for a Mercury and a Gemini space mission.

She was decommissioned in 1974 and in 1982 she became the foundation of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City.

The Lego USS Intrepid

How it’s done

Click here to see pictures of how he built this massive carrier.