COBI F/A-18E Super Hornet Set 5805

COBI's F/A-18E Super Hornet is a 1:48 model built from 560 blocks, 39 cm long, under the original Top Gun: Maverick licence in the film aircraft's markings. A full weapons load hangs under the wings, the cockpit takes a brick pilot, and a display stand with a plate carrying the aircraft name and the film logo is included. All markings are printed; no stickers.

The slash in the name was new

F/A-18 was the first American combat aircraft designated as both a fighter and an attack aircraft, and the slash is not a formality.

American naval aviation had always kept the two apart. Fighters — the F-4 Phantom, the F-14 Tomcat — shot down aircraft. Attack aircraft — the A-4 Skyhawk, the A-6 Intruder, the A-7 Corsair — bombed things. They had different cockpits, different training pipelines and different squadrons, and a carrier had to find deck space for both.

The Hornet did both jobs properly with one airframe and one pilot, and the Navy created the F/A designation because neither existing letter was honest. A squadron could be assigned to air defence one day and strike the next without changing anything but the load.

That is why the Hornet and then the Super Hornet swept the American carrier air wing clear. The Tomcat, the Intruder, the Corsair and the Viking are all gone, and one aircraft type now does what four used to.

In the COBI range

Set 5805A is the revised Version 2 of this model, with purpose-made thin vertical fins and structural improvements — worth knowing about if the silhouette matters to you. The other Top Gun sets are 5811 and 5811A (F-14A), 5920 (F-14 from Maverick), 5859 (MiG-28), 5921 (Enemy Strike Jet) and 5922 (the carrier).

Specifications

Pieces: 560 · Figures: 1 · Scale: 1:48 · Official Top Gun: Maverick licence · No stickers
Model dimensions: 39 × 28.5 × 10 cm (15.4 × 11.2 × 3.9 in)