F/A-18 Super Hornet Blue Angels

Let me first say that all the cons I am going to point out with this model are only in my opinion my 5 year old could not have cared less about them. I'll start with the pros...the model was quick and easy to build. It turned out to be a great bonding experience with my son. I know the package says 8 and up but my 5 year old also wanted a jet after seeing his older brothers get one. So I figured this would be good for him and it was. Now on to the cons. Let me again say that these cons are in my opinion only. not my 5 year old. The first is that the upper and lower fuselage in the package were put in the same location. through shipping the pieces were very close to getting 'snapped' together. in order to put the wings on the upper and lower fuselage had to be pried apart. second the pieces were all loose, except landing gear. no sprue trees. some pieces were in a bag. eager fingers ripping open the bag could potentially loose parts. third when the model was molded you could tell there were sprue trees a t some point. you can see this by the fact that there were nubs left on the pieces. some of them looked like the pieces were twisted off the mold trees because they were quite rough. yes i could have trimmed them off not a big deal. however if I did trim them, I would have had to use some touch up paint on the parts. lastly the jet itself is a Blue Angle painted F/A-18. all well and good, but the Blue Angels don't carry missiles like on this model. cold we have left them off yes, but the slots under the wings would have looked odd. lastly the nose cone. this part never seemed to 'snap' in. it kept falling off. I had to put on a dab of glue to keep it together. mostly because my son was flying it around. Over all it was a fun model to build for his first one and if he didn't care about the cons its all good to me.