Mr. Elijah Timms

Review: 60021 - Cargo Heliplane

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Hello. After numerous times of being among the fortunate first to have purchased and built new City sets, I've been feeling a growing obligation to give back to the EB community and share this information to help others shape their opinions as so many others have helped me in the past. So with that being said, I'm proud to unveil my first ever Eurobricks Review!! Please be advised, I have always had an affinity for reviews that share lots of pictures and small minutae discovered in the building process, and so I will attempt to do the same in my first.

60021 - Cargo Heliplane

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Set No: 60021

Theme/Subtheme: City/Cargo

Year released: 2013

Total Pieces: 393

Minifigs: 3, plus 1 dog

Price: $44.99 / €44.99 / £34.99

Lego Shop At Home Product Summary:

Lift away the heaviest logs with the Cargo Heliplane!

Call in the giant Cargo Heliplane to transport the logs to LEGO® City! First, unload the tough quad bike from the plane. Drive it into the forest where the lumberjacks are working hard to saw the logs for transport. Bundle them up and use the quad bike to tow them to the waiting Cargo Heliplane. Load up the plane and lift the logs away with the Cargo Heliplane’s adjustable rotors and powerful engines! Put the pilot in the cockpit with a cup of coffee and his dog to make the delivery! Includes 3 minifigures and accessories: a pilot and 2 lumberjacks.

• Includes 3 minifigures and accessories: a pilot and 2 lumberjacks

• Features twin adjustable rotors, big engines, opening cargo bay door, winch, and a tough quad bike

• Accessories include 5 logs, 2 chainsaws, coffee cup, storage box, chain, dog, safety headset, axe and a grappling hook

• Rotate the rotors to hoist up the logs

• Lower the quad bike from the Heliplane and load it up with logs!

• Cut the logs down to size with the saw!

• Measures over 3" (10cm) high, 10" (27cm) long and 11" (30cm) wide

• Quad bike measures over 1" (4cm) high, 2" (6cm) long and 1" (5cm) wide

This set is obviously based on the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, a multi-mission aircraft designed to combine the versatility of a helicopter with the long-range speed and performance of a prop aircraft. I'm no military expert, but from what I understand it received heavy criticism both during and after its development, but they are currently being deployed by the US Marine Corps and Air Force in a variety of functions.

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THE PACKAGING

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The box employs the standard City template, with a fairly busy shot of the loggers' work site and the large HeliPlane swooping in to lift something elsewhere. These woodsmen have obviously been hard at work, as there are very trees left standing in the background of the box front. If you're opposed to de-forestation, this may not be the set for you.

On the back we see various vignettes of appropriate play for the set, such as the lumberjacks sawing the trunks down, riding the quad, stacking the lumber, and loading up the HeliPlane. I thought it was a bit odd that in the bottom left corner, TLG includes the 60019 Stunt Plane as part of the Cargo subtheme.

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The side panel features our minifigs in all of their glory-- the two lumberjacks are hard at work chopping down trees and such, as the impatient Cargo Pilot shares a drink with their dog. What's in that mug, anyway?

THE CONTENTS

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This particular set contains 393 pieces, spread out among four bags with no large plates or other elements packed separately. No less than three instruction books are included to guide us through the set's construction, and last but not least we get a fairly small DSS to properly adorn our creation. More on that in a moment.

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Here's a random shot of the interior of book 2, followed by the parts call at the end of the final booklet. The manuals employ the same hazy blue sky/cloud/ocean as seen in other City sets this year, both pedestrian and maritime, so it's a fairly generic treatment but it works. Actually the green and white pieces of the heliplane really contrast with this hue and make for a fairly easy build.

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The back of book 1 features the WIN! kid-- no need to scan that ubiquitous image-- while the back of book 2 just continues the build process. Book 3, however, concludes with the gorgeous Cargo layout seen above. Obviously the 60022 Cargo Terminal takes center stage in this vignette, and rightfully so. This must be a frontier town's airport, however, as we can see our brave lumberjacks are actually clearing trees inside the gates of the airport itself. Remind me to never ever fly into a town that's still clearing trees around its runway, haha

THE STICKER SHEET

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The sticker sheet is small, but there are no less than 14 separate decals to be applied, so there's still a bit of painstaking work. If you're anything like me, you demand nothing short of perfection in their application... which proved fairly difficult for the tail wing stickers seen above. They just didn't seem to be cut as accurately as these pieces usually are. I feel like I've done a million of these stickers onto the tail fin piece lately, but usually the decals are cut very precisely to their dimensions. Not so here; they were a bit short.

MINIFIGS

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We receive three minifigs in this set, and they do not disappoint. My apologies for not including the dog above-- he was acting a bit aggressive after drinking whatever was in that cup and I wasn't about to disturb him.

Both lumberjacks are wearing the same flannel workshirt torso seen in several of last year's Mining sets, such as 4200 Mining 4x4, but it still feels like a new figure. I'm guessing it's the red ballcaps with the ear protection assembly that give them a new feel. They both sport pants in natural earth tones, as a proper lumberjack should. I like these guys a lot.

Then we have our dashing new Cargo Pilot. His torso, to my knowledge, is new. And it's beautiful. At first I thought it was the same torso as the Ship Captain in 2011's 4645 Harbour set, but there are many differences. The Ship Captain's got a blue tie, but our smarmy new pilot is sporting typical Cargo green; and where the Captain's got an anchor stitched into his right shirt pocket, the Pilot proudly wears his golden pilot's wings. He's got front and back printing and it's really a nice print job. This guy's got a real swagger to him with that clean white shirt and that cocky smirk on his face.

I didn't include close-ups of the heads, since none of the prints are new.

BAG ONE

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The first bag's contents are devoted entirely to the Lumberjacks and their assorted gear. There's not much in the way of new or exciting parts-- the large gray studs-on-the-side piece was the most unique thing that stood out for me. At any rate, this bag builds the Lumberjacks, a crate with their gear (seen below), a large palette to store the logs, the log transport device thing, their shiny red quad ATV, and last but not least the logs themselves. If you're a fan of 2x2 brown cylinder bricks, this set is the JACKPOT-- there's over 40 of them included, with 8 each per log for a total of 5 logs. It would have been nice for them to start as actual trees with foliage, but it's still an impressive haul for builders of horticulture.

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Our hard-working woodsmen get plenty of tools to work with, such as the circular saw, a small axe, a useful chain, a state-of-the-art chainsaw, and whatever this strange contraption is that transports the logs. The brick-built chainsaw looks great-- but not as great as the one included in last year's 4427 Fire ATV. That tool had to handles to hold onto, where our red one only has one. The log transporter uses those large claw pieces I've last seen in 70706 Crater Creeper-- but I've never seen them in red before. But then again I'm not much of a Technic builder so they could be commonplace there for all I know.

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The Loggers' quad is the typical fare for Lego four-wheeled ATV creations; It's serviceable, but a little boxy. This is especially seen from below where the vehicle seems like a perfect square, mostly because of the large tires set so far from the actual body of the quad. There's a handy tow hook on the back which is great for attaching the small chain to, enabling would-be woodsmen to hitch a log up to the quad and drag it back to the forest clearing to prepare for transport. This bag is really just a series of small builds, but there's a ton of playability packed into them.

BAG TWO

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The second bag begins the build of the aircraft itself. With all of these green and white pieces with the occasional red thrown in, it initially felt like I was sitting down to build an Octan plane. But don't worry, the red disappears within the plane's interior, specifically the cockpit itself. Off all the pieces in Bag Two it's clearly the new cockpit nose piece that catches your eye instantly-- I've already seen this one in the new 60013 Coast Guard Helicopter set, but it really is a lovely design. It feels far less commercial and sleek than the previous nosecone we've seen for so long; I'm very happy with it.

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The floor of the plane comes together very quickly, and at first it seems SO small. One thing that disappointed me about the build was these dark gray flange-like elements on the rear of the plane-- each are built out of two sloped roof pieces and a 1x8 tile, but unfortunately there's not much else linking them to the structure itself. Young kids and rough-playing builders will likely see these elements come apart or break off the main model with little effort.

You'll also see our pilot's cockpit, giving him ample space to man his printed slope piece. He's got no levers to grab onto, but what does he care?

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When it came time to install the winch/rope assembly, I thought there was a very simple but clever decision made to thread the string through the holes of a black 2x6 plate on the HeliPlane floor. The service hook is then tied on outside of the aircraft itself, so upon completion the hook just drops out of that small little hole and hides its entire rack of extra rope/thread. Granted, a TON of interior space is sacrificed as a result, but it does have a very clean appearance on the outside. You can also use one of the studs on the side of the hook to just attach it to the bottom of the HeliPlane, so our cocky pilot doesn't have to worry about flying through the back country with some ugly hook dangling from his belly.

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By the time we finish with Bag 2, we've got most of the fuselage completed, short of the roof, tail assembly and wings. It seems small at this point, but it gets much larger.

BAG THREE

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The third bag builds the roof and tail wing structure, and then finally the massive wingspan that attaches across the entire plane itself. There's not much in the way of unique pieces, but I must confess, I have a strange fascination with Lego aircraft wheel and tire assemblies. For the record, there's actually two additional tires missing from the picture above, for a total of 7. An extra!

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Make no mistake, the tail and roof assembly is a boring build; but notice how much longer it instantly becomes upon adding this piece. Bear in mind that the rear wheels are added just at the rear of those dark gray flange elements, putting the wheels just barely beyond the midpoint of the aircraft. But don't worry, the wings become so heavy that there's little fear of the model tipping backward when at rest.

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Now I've been building Lego sets for a long, long time, but I've never encountered something like this in an official build before. When building the wing assembly, there's actually a strip of yellow and red that is build into the interior support structure-- red is on the left side of its horizontal axis, and yellow is on the right. You can see in the second picture how they are all but entirely hid from view before they entirely disappear within the heliplane's interior. WHY? My only guess is to reinforce the left and right sides for younger builders? It's strange because it's just so unnecessary...

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Once the wingspan has been attached, it is further locked into place with these small fender pieces, usually seen in quad and small car builds. I've never seen them in green before, and I thought they were a very clever piece to add to the plane's overall aesthetic design and aerodynamic appearance. Also notice the click hinge elements on the tips of the wings-- these are the same pieces used to attach roof elements, and more recently, the wings on the 70701 Swarm Interceptor Galaxy Squad fighter. These are actually used to attach the rotors, which was news to me-- I figured they'd just be on a rod and would swivel 360 degrees on either end, but this is not the case.

BAG FOUR

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The fourth and final bag builds the engine and rotor assemblies on either side of the heliplane, and are what give it its unique and signature look. Despite a relatively small amount of pieces in this bag, the third instruction manual is dedicated entirely to this build. This is because each engine is built independently, despite them being exact mirror images of one another. For a seasoned builder, it can be done in half the time by simply building them as mirror duplicates of one another.

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These things are fairly large-- As you start out it almost feels like you're building a small watercraft or speeder. Once the top elements are added, they look a bit more proper.

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You can see how large the rotors are as well. They're held onto the rod with a single black cone, but don't worry-- they're not going anywhere.

THE COMPLETED BUILD

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The resulting build is a very unique and eyecatching design that would stand out in any City or Airport layout. Like most aircraft and even road vehicles, the scale is certainly not correct, but it does have a very appealing and rugged style to it. This thing is certainly not going to break any sound barriers, but it does feel like a workhorse, which is pretty cool.

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Thanks to those click hinge attachments, the rotors do not swivel 360 degrees. In fact, they can only tilt downwards about 80 degrees before they want to break off. But why would you want to tilt them down anyway? Tilting them up is another story, as they are very much designed to pivot a full 90 degrees into its true VTOL orientation.

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The rear hatch does open, giving a place for the lumberjacks to store their crate of tools. But why on earth would the HeliPlane want to fly off with their gear? It would have been much more exciting if our loggers could push their quad into the rear hold, but at 6 studs wide our hotshot pilot just isn't having it. His interior is only 4-wide and he aims to keep it that way.

EXTRA PIECES

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The usual suspects, but with a few nice surprises. As stated before, you get an extra aircraft tire. TLG also throws in an extra of the new ear protector piece. Of the new Summer '13 sets so far, I've built all of the Coast Guard sets, the Grand Prix Truck, and the Monster Truck Transporter-- each of those have the new ear protector pieces, and each of them gives you an extra one as well. If only TLG hooked us up with an extra ballcap with the pre-drilled hole to accommodate them; I've got plenty of ballcaps but not enough with the holes.

THE FINAL VERDICT

I'm not much for numerical grades-- it always seems that whenever they're tallied at the end, they don't equal the sentiments of the reviewer. So instead, I'm just going to assign a letter grade like your favorite teacher did, and allow you to award your own numerical award at your leisure.

MINIFIGS: B+

These guys are pretty great, and although the lumberjacks aren't a new torso, they really feel like one. They've also got plenty of accessories to make them look less like miners and more like rugged logging men. And what's not to love about the Cargo Pilot? It's a really clean and slick print I couldn't be happier with him, unless of course they would've thrown in the new Sea Captain's hat from CMF Series 10 with some wings printed on the brim. Top it off with another german shepherd dog and we've got a nice collection of figs here.

BUILD: B

It's not the most amazing thing I've ever built, but it's got very clean lines and accomplishes exactly what it intends to. I wish it could have been a little wider, and certainly I wish we had more interior space... anyone looking to convert this thing into its true military purpose is going to have to move a few things around, but it's certainly possible. The lumberjack builds are fun, but beg for more. More on that in a moment.

PRICE: B

I'm all for trying to reach the 10 cent price ratio, but it rarely happens anymore. Still, at 393 pieces, $44.99 isn't a bad price. I bit on the TRU markup and paid the full $50 USD, but I just couldn't help myself. Still, I'd say wait until it hits all of the stores and get it at the MSRP.

PLAYABILITY: B

There's a lot of fun to be had here, but I'm sure it would get monotonous after a while for kids. Sure, there's plenty of work and fun to be had with the lumberjacks-- the log cylinders alone just beg to be "cut up" into their smaller pieces, and I'm sure kids will enjoy that the most-- but the HeliPlane itself is kind of a one-trick pony in this set. Yeah, you pick up the log. But where do you put it? Why are you air-lifting a single log and wasting all that fuel to do so? It only seems to reinforce the feeling that this set was a bunch of separate builds that were sort of forced together.

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VERDICT: B

I'm probably just a harsh critic-- I like this set a lot. It just feels like it was sort of thrown together. I'm guessing someone over in Denmark built an amazing V-22 Osprey model months and months ago and TLG has just been searching and searching for a way to compile it into a production set. The result feels like a mish-mash of what seems to be two very promising but under-developed themes.

Cargo is begging to be expanded upon-- why not give us a great little $20 set of a green delivery truck with a worker who gets his own dedicated green jacket and shorts, instead of throwing all the ground workers into coveralls. Just think "Brown," and then make it "Green." BOOM! We've got a winner.

Also, the Logger theme could be really, really, great if TLG decides to open it up. Sawing, cutting, hauling-- this is all fun any boy would enjoy. I say they give us a nice little army/forest builder of a fully-realized tree with foliage, and a hard-working logger who then cuts it up and processes it into lumber. Imagine another set with a lumber train car-- haul the logs up to the rail and drop them into the train car to be shipped. How about an 18-wheeler full of lumber? Possibly it's the only kind of trailer we've yet to receive, right? And finally, imagine how much fun a Lego sawmill could be...

Until then, we've got this set. I'd still recommend it to anyone just because the HeliPlane is such a unique and clever aircraft-- there's nothing like it in my collection and I'm sure they're never will be again. Thanks!

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Really good review. Very informative. As for the Cargo plane; I like the way it looks, but I think you're points are valid about playability.

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Love this set, it's different.

The real life one was criticized for the fact it didn't work and dozens and dozens of soldiers were hurt and killed by it, but with billions of dollars wasted they got them to work.

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Thanks for the review 'Mr ET', I have noticed that stickers are not cut spot-on for quite a few years now. :wink:

The pilot must be using Jedi mind powers to help control the craft ! :laugh:

I'm surprised that the axe-men don't have walkie talkies to communicate with the heli-plane.

The other thing that has surprised me has been that Lego chose not to release a logging truck and any support vehicles......oh, wait it's up to us AFOL's to come up with those right ? :laugh:

This set will be added to my city collection once it hits stores in Oz. :blush:

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Love this set, it's different.

The real life one was criticized for the fact it didn't work and dozens and dozens of soldiers were hurt and killed by it, but with billions of dollars wasted they got them to work.

Actually it's only to do with cost as only 2 prototypes crashed during development

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I'm surprised that the axe-men don't have walkie talkies to communicate with the heli-plane.

They are wearing ear-protectors so they wouldn't be able to hear on a walkie-talkie anyway :)

This set will be added to my city collection once it hits stores in Oz. :blush:

Me too, I just LOVE this set (although for once I wont be applying the stickers as the parts are more useful to me without them :). The new cockpit nose piece is perfect for any number of larger helicopter designs and I hope it appears in more colors and soon :)

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Nice review, I wonder if you could Mod it into a VTOL warship

Oh, absolutely... I've already tinkered a bit with removing the winch assembly & adding doors to either side, to create a troop carrier. If you gutted the interior, I suppose you might fit 6 figs inside. Accessibility is the concern there.

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It took me about an hour last night to build the whole set, I sort of enjoyed the build......the rear door section kept coming off while assembling which was starting to tick me off. :blush:

I feel Lego should have worked a little harder on the logging crew and perhaps added a piece of logging machinery.....I know that would increase the price but it would improve the playability of the set......machinery similar to those seen the show 'Axe Men' on A&E. :wink:

At least it was nice getting new minifig heads in this set......well for the loggers at least. :blush:

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Also, the Logger theme could be really, really, great if TLG decides to open it up. Sawing, cutting, hauling-- this is all fun any boy would enjoy. I say they give us a nice little army/forest builder of a fully-realized tree with foliage, and a hard-working logger who then cuts it up and processes it into lumber. Imagine another set with a lumber train car-- haul the logs up to the rail and drop them into the train car to be shipped. How about an 18-wheeler full of lumber? Possibly it's the only kind of trailer we've yet to receive, right? And finally, imagine how much fun a Lego sawmill could be...

The other thing that has surprised me has been that Lego chose not to release a logging truck and any support vehicles......oh, wait it's up to us AFOL's to come up with those right ? :laugh:

I feel Lego should have worked a little harder on the logging crew and perhaps added a piece of logging machinery.....I know that would increase the price but it would improve the playability of the set......machinery similar to those seen the show 'Axe Men' on A&E. :wink:

Thanks for the great review 'Mr. Elijah Timms'. I really like this set and still considering getting it but like you and LT, I think TLG could have expanded on this and had a "Logging" theme which IMO would be better than the mining theme having some of the items that both of you have mentioned included. Edited by scottwb2010

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