COBI F/A-18E Super Hornet Set 5805B

COBI's F/A-18E Super Hornet is a 1:48 model of the US Navy fighter, built under license from the Top Gun: Maverick film and supplied with a pilot figure, a display stand and a plaque. The undercarriage retracts and the control surfaces move.

The upgrade that was a new aircraft

The Super Hornet is not a bigger Hornet. It shares a name, a shape and almost nothing else.

It is about 1.3 meters longer, the wing area is roughly a quarter greater, the air intakes were redrawn from oval to rectangular, and the airframe was built from around forty percent fewer structural parts than the aircraft it replaced. By any ordinary reckoning it is a different machine.

It was presented as a derivative anyway, and deliberately. The Navy had just lost the A-12 Avenger II, cancelled in 1991 after years and billions with nothing delivered, and Congress had no appetite for another clean-sheet naval aircraft. An upgrade to a proven design was fundable. A new fighter was not. So the E and F models arrived wearing the Hornet's name, and the name stuck to an aeroplane that had outgrown it.

In the COBI range

Set 5931 is the Rafale A and 5910 the F-16C Fighting Falcon, both modern jets at the same scale.

Specifications

Scale: 1:48 · Figures: 1 pilot · Display stand included · Officially licensed