Written by: Ryan Lee
“How’s the LEGO Hangar coming?”
“I’m still designing it.”
“Still!?”
Yes—still.
Designing a minifig-scale replica of the Alberta Aviation Museum takes time, patience, and more math than anyone expected. There are a few reasons why:
- I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to detail.
- Every choice has to fit within the LEGO “system.”
- The hangar itself is mostly done—but the aircraft inside are another story.
Scaling Down a Hangar
The goal is to create a minifig-scale model of the museum—one that showcases not only our aircraft collection but also the hangar’s historic architecture. The first challenge was deciding what “minifig-scale” actually means.
A standard LEGO minifigure (their official term for the little people) is about 40 mm tall, 16 mm wide at the feet, and 8 mm deep—roughly a 1:40 scale. That makes a minifig about 5’3” in human terms, which seems fine—until you realize they’d also be over two feet wide at the feet! Minifigs are charmingly out of proportion.
So, while a 1:40 aircraft might look the right height next to a minifig, there’d be no way to fit two pilots side by side in a cockpit. Most LEGO designers—known in the community as MOC (My Own Creation) builders—therefore use something closer to 1:32–1:35 scale.
Unfortunately, filling a 1:40-scale hangar with 1:35 aircraft would run us out of space fast. The solution? Build the hangar itself at about 1:37 scale-ish—big enough to look right, but small enough to fit everything in.
Doing the LEGO Math
The real hangar’s main structure (excluding the annexes) measures about 68.9 m wide and 99 m long. At 1:35 scale, that works out to roughly 1.97 x 2.83 m, or 246 x 354 LEGO studs. Sounds simple, right?
Not quite.
The hangar’s Warren truss roof is one of its most distinctive architectural features—and one we definitely wanted to include. But here’s the problem: LEGO doesn’t do triangles easily. Its pieces are built on a square grid, which means diagonal connections don’t line up neatly unless you use specific angles.
For example, at a 45° angle, studs would need to be spaced 1.4142 times farther apart to align properly (thanks, Pythagoras). LEGO designers get around this by using “Pythagorean triples”—sets of numbers like 3-4-5 that form right triangles with whole-number sides.
Using this trick, I found that making the trusses nine studs tall gives a height of 2.66 m at 1:37 scale—close to the real 2.74 m. I couldn’t make them taller, though, because the longest 1-stud-wide LEGO plate is 12 studs long, which only works cleanly with a 6-8-10 triangle. It’s a small compromise, but one of many.
A Game of Studs
Each truss diagonal section measures 14 studs, and there are 14 of them. That’s 196 studs total—short of our 246-stud width. By spacing the trusses out slightly (two studs between each triangle, plus some structural details), the total comes to 232 studs—close enough for a 1:37 scale width.
For the length, the real hangar has 21 truss segments. Factoring in spacing and structure, the LEGO version comes to 328 studs long, roughly 1:38 scale. Close enough that no one will notice—except, perhaps, the two of you still reading this.
The finished model includes the correct number of windows, hangar doors, and overall proportions. It’s not perfect, but it looks right—and that’s what matters.
Filling the Hangar
Now comes the fun (and frustrating) part: designing LEGO aircraft to fill the hangar. Each one demands its own set of compromises—much to the Curatorial team’s chagrin—but Cayla and I are having a great time working through the challenges.
When it’s done, the LEGO Hangar will be a miniature tribute to the museum’s history, architecture, and ingenuity. And maybe, just maybe, a reminder that even tiny bricks can build big dreams.