Douglas C-47 Skytrain(Dakota)

Great Xmas present for a great price

Great looking model, a decent size and sturdy once assembled

FunctionalityThis set is a 1:48 scale military version of iconic DC3 aircraft.⦁ The main landing gears can be tucked away⦁ The door on left side opens⦁ Propellers rotate if you blow air on them⦁ The flaps in main wings can be operated by hand⦁ Rear wings have no movable parts.⦁ Rudder can be moved by hand⦁ Glazed windows (not stickers)⦁ Two mini figures are includedThe airplane feels big when built. It is 40 cm long with 50 cm wingspan.It would have been better if the top of the plane could be opened to reveal inside.Although, it does not have any interior, except cockpit.Cobi is a toy company who builds sets similar to Lego. I purchased the 5743 aircraft model assuming it would be same as Lego.But it is not.The quality control is poor. There were several parts missing. Fortunately not critical parts and I was able to build the model which still looks like the picture.The building instruction is poor. They show the previous step parts as ghost image meaning the colors are all shown light grey. This is confusing to figure out where to put what parts. The parts came in 3 large bags which had several small bags inside.In Lego, you can typically build at least 2 models from same sets. But in Cobi you build only 1 model. So, in this case, Cobi could have used larger custom parts instead of numerous tiny parts. This led to a frustration during building. It took too long due to finding parts in heaps and poor instruction.Cobi has a mechanism where you can report missing parts but they should check inventory before shipping products to customers. Waiting for missing parts to arrive is not good experience. It stops from enjoying the product fully.The bricks look like good quality but tolerance is not always good. Sometimes you need lot of force to set bricks apart if you make any mistake. Sometimes the bricks don't align correctly.Cobi's price is reasonable (cheaper than Lego) but quality is sub par. They need to sort out quality issues urgently. They have the potential to beat Lego on value but they are not there yet.If you want to buy Cobi sets, I suggest you buy which has fewer parts. If the model has thousands of parts and you discover few of them missing during build process, then it will be a poor experience. If you gift Cobi sets to someone think how they would feel if they discover parts are missing.