✈️ Build the legend, feel the flight—don’t just watch history, own it!
The UGEARS Mad Hornet is a 354-piece wooden 3D puzzle model of a 1930s racing airplane featuring a wind-up helical spring motor that powers realistic propeller spins, wing flaps, and up to 8 feet of taxi movement. Designed for adults and teens 14+, this medium-difficulty kit offers an 8-hour immersive assembly experience with all materials and multilingual instructions included, making it both a challenging project and a stunning vintage décor piece.
Product Dimensions | 26.5 x 24.5 x 12.5 cm; 792 g |
Manufacturer recommended age | 14 years and up |
Item model number | Mad Hornet |
Educational Objective(s) | Problem solving ability, logical thinking, hand eye coordination |
Number of pieces | 354 |
Assembly Required | Yes |
Batteries Required? | No |
Batteries included? | No |
Material Type(s) | Wood |
Colour | Brown |
ASIN | B0BFG7C8SB |
S**L
Exquisite puzzle that gave hours of pleasure.
Although the price may seem high, the complexity of the puzzle and the quality of manufacture makes it very good value. Being manufactured in Ukraine makes this even more attractive as a gift, for someone who enjoys using their hands to create conversation pieces of art.The pack comes with a beautifully illustrated 56-page Assembly Instructions book, itself a work of great design with a very clear workflow. Each page shows which plywood sheet the featured parts come from, keeping mistakes to a minimum. Close attention is needed for the construction and meticulous care when putting pieces together, but there are tips all the way through about how to complete each stage.Four numbered sheets of smooth plywood, 4mm thick and 360mm long x 165mm wide, contain all the die cut wooden parts, each individually numbered, ready to be pressed out in sequence. Also in the box are a steel spring, cords, rubber bands, small wax candle and a sheet of fine sandpaper for smoothing. One tool is provided, which is wooden part number H1, that, after removing from sheet 1, is used to ease pieces away from the plywood sheets. The instruction manual shows how it's used.No glue is needed to make the model as everything is so accurately cut that it fits together perfectly. Parts lock together when needed, but rotate and slide when required for movement.In a way this isn't a puzzle, because I don't think it would be possible to construct it without the excellent instruction book - guessing wouldn't work! But as an intellectual and physical challenge this really kept me engaged for many hours. The end result, a model aircraft with working mechanisms, all made from plywood, is a truly wonderful piece of modern sculpture. It's probably only possible using computers to design and cut the components. I haven't made any changes to the final appearance of the wooden model because it looks so impressive as it is.In my opinion this is worth every penny as a gift for someone special who loves a crafting or modelling challenge.
Y**Y
Expensive but worth it
Impressive puzzle kit, so unusual and unique. Kit comes with lots of pre-fabricated wooden parts to assemble a vintage aircraft. I decided to dismantle it after a few days of being marvelled by the finished article to put away rather than have it on the shelf collecting dust.The kit itself is ok although a little overwhelming because of all the parts, comes with instructions and the entire plane took several hours over a few days on and off to assemble, everything went together perfectly and looks great. Very pleased and impressed with this. The value at £49.99 (at the time of review) feels expensive but for the quality and the uniqueness of this puzzle I would say the value is not bad overall. Would make a great gift for puzzle loving aircraft enthusiast.
A**S
A great challenging puzzle
UGEARS Airplane Model 3D PuzzlesThis is the second puzzle Ive made by UGEARS and while some can be difficult and challenging the instructions are fairly straightforwards.This 1930s plane is 4/5 on the difficulty list the other product i put together was 3/5 this i found was just more time consuming.The attention to detail and move ability is just outstanding, the wood make's this strong its not easily broken and there's a small 354 pieces and the time it should take is around 8 hours. personally 8 hours is probably doable however it took me longer at around 10 hours. I personally would say just take your time and don't rush.There is two modes to this model a pre-flight check mode and taxi mode. which is powered by a wind-up helical spring motor so in pre flight mode the wings flap move and the rudder moves left and right while the propeller also turns its a really well thought out design.Once all the checks are mode the plane will then continue on to the taxi mode and will then move under its own power.This would make a great gift for anyone who loves to make puzzles or build's Lego as this is something quite different. what also makes this good is the fact that you don't have to get messy with the glue so even if your looking to build this with the kids all parts connect together without you needing to clean glue off the table.Overall its a very well thought out puzzle, challenging with good instructions to follow and no messing about with glue.
M**X
The usual Ugears quality but other models are better value
I have made lots of Ugears models now, and they are all excellent quality.Others, though, offer more for the price (£50 at the time of review). This one was good fun and challenging to build, as always, but the end product is less fun than e.g. the marble run.I would definitely recommend Ugears models, just not this one in particular.
J**D
Challenging, all-inclusive vintage wooden plane kit...
One for the engineers - or anyone who's interested in how things are put together - this wooden kit from UGEARS contains everything you need to assemble and make this vintage 1930s racing plane taxi for up to 2.5 metres.With comprehensive illustrated instructions, it's rated 'Medium difficulty' and would make a perfect present for adult modellers looking for a fresh challenge. It's attractively boxed too. All told, this kit includes 354 separate component parts. Eight hours is the UGEARS' estimate of completion time - but I suspect it will take some people rather longer.There are 2 modes once the plane is built. Taxi is the second but initially there's check mode. Here, the propeller spins, the wing flaps and tail rudder move. The taxi mode activates automatically once the checks are completed.The finished model is reasonably sized and, unlike some models, this one in natural wood should look pretty good on general display - no need to hide it away in a hobbies' room. I shall be giving this to my partner, a railway modeller, at Christmas. It should take him out of his comfort zone and give him something to do when all the touchy-feely, feel-good Christmas shows he seeks to avoid are on.
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