COBI F-35B Lightning II Royal Air Force Set 5830

COBI's F-35B Lightning II Royal Air Force is a 1:48 model built from 594 blocks, 32.5 cm long, under Lockheed Martin licence. The cockpit opens for a pilot figure with helmet and oxygen mask and hose, and a brick display stand with a nameplate is included. All markings are printed; no stickers.

Britain built the carriers first and the choice followed

Britain flies the B version — the short take-off, vertical landing one — and that was decided by two ships.

HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were designed without catapults and without arrestor wires. They have a ski-jump ramp at the bow instead. That makes them considerably cheaper to build and run, and it means only an aircraft that can launch from a ramp and land vertically can operate from them.

The government did reconsider. In 2010 it announced a switch to catapults and the longer-ranged F-35C; in 2012 it reversed that, when the cost of fitting catapults to a ship already half built came back at roughly double the estimate. So the B it was.

The consequence is a genuine trade. The B carries less fuel and fewer weapons internally than the A or C, because a lift fan occupies the space — but it can operate from those two carriers, from an assault ship, or from a strip of road near a front line, which neither of the others can.

One squadron, two services

British F-35Bs are flown jointly. 617 Squadron — the Dambusters — and 809 Naval Air Squadron draw from a single pool of aircraft and a mixed body of RAF and Royal Navy pilots, and the same airframes fly from land bases and from the carriers.

In the COBI range

Set 5895 is the F-35B in Italian markings, 5912 the US Marine Corps version and 5904 the Polish F-35A. Set 5758 is the Lancaster of 617 Squadron — the same unit, eighty years earlier.

Specifications

Pieces: 594 · Figures: 1 pilot · Scale: 1:48 · Licensed by Lockheed Martin · No stickers
Model dimensions: 32.5 × 21.5 × 10 cm (12.8 × 8.5 × 3.9 in)