Gru's Airship

Gru's Airship
Information
Manufacturer	Dr. Nefario
Type	Airship
Color	Silver
Owner	Gru Dru Gru (Temporary)
Ability	VTOL Armed with rockets and twin machine guns Equipped with a large grappling hook turret Large Cargo Hold
Appearances	Despicable Me Despicable Me 2 Despicable Me 3 Minions: The Rise of Gru Despicable Me 4

Felonius Gru owns an airship as his means of air transportation and combat. The ship is stolen by Dru and some of the minions who follow him to continue the villainy tradition of the Gru's family.

Description

Gru's airship is a heavily armed aircraft used by Gru to transport him over large distances his car can't get to. Despite its unorthodox design, the airship is surprisingly powerful and functions normally under most circumstances. The airship itself is tall and quite thin. At the front it tapers to a point and a smaller one at the back. A huge rotating rocket thruster is hung over the back point as the main source of power, which allows the ship to achieve VTOL.

There are two seats in the front and in the back, there is a claw that can drop through a hatch in the bottom. It also seems to have a large cargo hold and can accommodate many minions.

The vehicle is armed with six machine guns (three in each wing) and has two large missile racks concealed in its body.

Plot

Despicable Me

Gru initially uses his airship to steal the SR-6 from a East Asian research lab, only to have Vector stealing the shrink ray from himself. Gru attempts to shoot down Vector with his machine guns and rockets, but Vector deploys countermeasures before shrinking his ship. Gru is forced to ride his shrunken airship all the way back to home with his two Minions.

After a considerable amount of time, the airship grew back to its original size and is noticed by Dr. Nefario, who used it to rescue Gru from falling to death from Vector's escape pod. The duo then used the airship's grappling hook to force open the escape pod's hatch and rescue Margo, Edith, and Agnes. However, when Gru was climbing to Margo on the metal hoist, it breaks, and the Minions form a chain to save them and bring them back to the aircraft.

Despicable Me 2

After returning to Gru's lair with the PX-41 Antidote, Dr. Nefario mounted jelly mini guns on the airship and stocked handheld jelly guns inside the vehicle's side bay, while removing its rocket pods. Nefario subsequently rescued Gru with it at El Macho's lair. He, Margo, Edith, Agnes, and a few other Minions then landed the ship in the courtyard to take down the rest of the Evil Minions.

Despicable Me 3

After Lucy settles the girls and Gru calls the Minions and Dru to sleep, they steal the airship and replaced Gru's emblem with a "D", as Dru and most of the Minions "continue the family tradition".

Minions: The Rise of Gru

Near the end of the film, after Dr. Nefario agrees to work for Gru, he show him something cool, which is the airship. They fly out of "Criminal Records" as the minions start chanting "big boss". Gru exclaims that he likes that as they fly away.

Gallery

A massive array of rockets

Sketch of the airship's structure

Trivia

• Gru's airship very loosely resembles the starship Slave I from Star Wars, however, with its side panels under its wings removed, it looks more like an LAAT.
• The airships characteristics in the sequel mounted with gatling guns can somewhat be similar to that of a UH-60 Black Hawk or a UH-1 Huey used by the U.S. Army.
• Despite appearing slightly more aerodynamic than Vector's airship, in real life Gru's airship would still have to rely on pure thrust to fly.