COBI Boeing 737-8 Set 26608

COBI's Boeing 737-8 is a 1:110 model built from 340 blocks, 36.2 cm long, with rotating wheels, retracting landing gear and engines with turning fans. A black display stand with a nameplate and pilot and passenger figures are included. All markings are printed; the set contains no stickers.

A 1967 aeroplane with 2017 engines

The 737 is the most-ordered airliner ever built, more than 15,000 of them, and every one of them traces back to a design finished in the mid-1960s — including the thing that has defined this particular version.

The original 737 sat very low to the ground, deliberately: airports in 1967 often had no jetways or belt loaders, and a low fuselage meant ground crew could load bags by hand and passengers could use short stairs. That decision was correct then and has constrained every version since, because there is only so much room under the wing.

Modern engines are much larger in diameter than 1960s ones, since a bigger fan moving more air slowly is how you get efficiency. Fitting them meant moving the engines forward and higher up, ahead of the wing rather than under it. That changes how the aircraft behaves at high angles of attack, and Boeing's software compensation for it, MCAS, was implicated in two fatal accidents in 2018 and 2019 that grounded the type worldwide for twenty months.

The aircraft returned to service in late 2020 after the system was redesigned and pilot training requirements changed. It is worth knowing the shape of the story: the compromise in this airframe is sixty years old, and it is visible in the model — look at how far forward of the wing the engines sit.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:110 airliner collection with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (26603).

Specifications

Pieces: 340 · Figures: 2 · Scale: 1:110 · Display stand and nameplate included
Model dimensions: 36.2 × 11 cm (14.2 × 4.3 in)