Colin Clark with his favorite future aircraft concept at the 2019 Paris Air Show

PARIS AIR SHOW: Sometimes the combination of exhaustion, excitement and love of science fiction can merge in strange ways at air shows.

In the good old days, countries used to unveil new military aircraft at air shows on a regular basis. And they’d fly. Today, not so much. The two new aircraft garnering the most attention at this week’s show here were models meant to fly — well, sometime in the not so distant future.

“Our machine is a mock-up, but in 2023 there will be a real machine. First flight is in 2025, and [it will be in] service in 2028,” Turkish Aerospace Industries president and CEO Temel Kotil said about the TF-X when it was unveiled here.

Over at the scrum where French company Dassault unveiled their “new” airplane — which may begin to replace the Rafale fighter in 2040 — there was much talk of Spain officially joining the Franco-German program and of the technical advances the aircraft will boast.

But when we saw the LEGO Star Wars Starfighter, we knew we had to have some fun. Enjoy!