Review on 🚀 COBI TOP Gun F 14 Tomcat: Unleash Your Inner Maverick with this High-Flying Masterpiece by Jeff Bremmer

Wow. OK. I might be a bit biased, but watching Top Gun as a kid made me fall in love with the F-14 Tomcat. I was 7 years old and totally into LEGO and I kept asking my parents when will I ever get an F-14 toy? Sure, there were Ertl's Force One Die Cast models, but I loved LEGO and really wanted a buildable version. To my dismay, this was never implemented. Fast forward 35 years and now we have the COBI F-14 Tomcat kit. I still love building blocks and now I share that passion with my 7 year old son and when I saw the release of the F/A-18 Super Hornet from Top Gun: Maverick I knew it was only a matter of time. Tomcat came out. Converting from pounds to dollars, the price for Revain was about the same as what COBI was charging for a direct sale (maybe a little cheaper), so I bought it. The plastic processing quality of the COBI kit is very good. The plastic parts fit very well and are clear; Their machining tolerances are very high and each part fits together perfectly with clean edges, unlike many other 3rd party construction toys like MegaBlok or LEPIN fake kits. COBI pieces are minty and pleasant to the touch with no waxy feel. The assembly instructions are generally clear, however, be aware of some of their sloping/curved parts. Very similar in size, but it's hard to tell in the instructions which part they belong to (flat oblique or curved with a small radius, with the same length 2x1, etc.). Most of this kit is made out of light gray plastic so look out for the arrows in the instructions. what they have, which indicates which stone to chip for leveling purposes. It took my son and I about 4 hours to build this (slowly) and time was well spent. The kit includes 6 molded missiles (4 not quite AIM-54 and 2 AIM-120). It comes with two small cylinders for the IRST block for the chin and the way COBI designed the motors is pretty cool. The chassis design seems weak, due to the weight of the wheeled model, the rear landing gear will sag. There's a tail hook, but no distinctive F-14 air brakes or two external fuel tanks, a sad face emoji :(. The swept wings are neat, but they don't have gearing, so each wing moves independently. The model also has a fully articulated tail horizontal flaperons that mount via a ball joint the vertical struts as well as the nose cone and front fuselage are sculpted, which is a big departure from the traditional LEGO building philosophy that attempts to use bricks to build creating a shape, but in this case it's a good combination of the shape aimed for and the practicality of using the panels. My favorite part of this kit is the slanted twin-jet air intake design (like a real airplane), and felt after assembly I the top plates. The designers did a great job in the implementation: there is no radar antenna, just a 2x2 mon tageplatte sat, but the lantern opens to reveal the Maverick and Goose minifigures in all their glory. These two minifigures are full-size as opposed to the half-size minifigures that you get with the COBI F/A-18 Super Hornet. The graphics on the helmets are lovely, and you get Tom Cruise's signature grin on Maverick's head and Anthony Edwards' signature mustache on Goose. There aren't many parts in the cockpit other than a control joystick for the Maverick. So if you want to customize him, there's a 2x1 open space in front of the Maverick minifigure that you can generate as a front controller or a multi-function display. The canopy is a one piece piece with molded lines, some black paint or a black decal would be nice for detailing. Also note: NO STICKERS! All nozzle details are printed on plastic which is very nice. The model comes with a flight stand if you want to keep the plane off the table, but it's a little flimsy and the model wobbles on small bumps. I am very happy with this purchase and have enjoyed putting it together with my son. If you are a Top Gun fan, aviation enthusiast and/or love high quality building blocks this is a great set from COBI. The next step is the flight permit!