Wow - it’s hard to remember how BIG warplanes are… at 1:48 scale, 15 inches equals sixty feet long! Disappointing this doesn’t seem to be the old-style model with extruded-plastic parts, to be assembled with glue - apparently under the surface there are Lego-like interconnects, which makes this a bit less solid and “real”, at least to me…
If LEGO is compared at 10 out of 10, then this brand (COBI) is around 9.5 out of 10. Whereas, more famous LEGO-knock-off brands like Mega Bloks is a 5 out of 10. The COBI “bricks” are of high quality and are compatible with LEGO. And they are not cheap knockoffs from a certain Asian country. COBI is a European company (Poland) and the pieces are made in Poland (so as they claim). The .5 got removed due to some pieces having a clear indication of where the injection molding process occurred and looks marred on the surface. A simple solution is to have the marred finish be facing on the inside of the model when possible. But even LEGO have pieces in the same color that will appear in different shades due to the manufacturing process. The COBI pieces are very tight once put together. This can be a plus for people who only builds it once, but will be an issue for people who likes to take it a part and rebuild into other things.
Sorry if this sounds like an ad and no, I do not work for them. But I am very impressed with their products. Our household first bought this exact model from a similarly priced, naturally-occurring-electrostatic-discharge deal not too long ago and it is now a fine display model on top of my shelf. Since then, we bought a few of their Tank (ie. M1A2 Abrams, not a fish tank) lines that are just as impressive.
The F-18 is solid and heavy once built. It is swooshable, but I believe it is designed to be more of a display model. If LEGO produce military sets, this is what you would expect.
“Maverick” in Top Gun flew an F-14 Tomcat not an F-18 Hornet
Top Gun 2, movie, f-18 is used