Set #3063 Heartlake Flying Club: LEGO Friends is a great Theme with a lot of impressive set designs and ideas, and while we have seen LEGO Planes in the past this is the first one targeted at young girl builders showing that anyone can become a pilot if they work at it.

This set is one that will be retiring soon, should you get one if you haven't already? Read on and find out.

Box/Instructions

The LEGO Friends Box design is one that I find quite appealing it shows off the set and features in a fun and appealing manner and doesn't look exclusively feminine.

They even tell you when the sets will be packaged in numbered bags, a feature that most other sets with numbered bags don't show on the back of their boxes. The instructions are not protected and neither is the included sticker sheet, these can be damaged if packaged improperly.

The instructions step-by-step guide to building for each individual bag is also easy to follow and understand.

Parts

This set has a lot of good parts and great colors there are some great looking teal pieces including the plane's tailfin. There's also a Crab piece, which is a rare animal piece to find. Goldie the bird is also in this set (the little yellow bird, which LEGO has dubbed Goldie.)

Minifigures

The Stephanie Mini-Doll does not have any unique parts/printing, we've seen her in past sets before. She's still a very nicely detailed looking Mini-Doll, it'd be nice if LEGO included more in these sets, one doll only in most of these sets, especially the 25$ ones can be a bit dissapointing if you don't already own many more LEGO Friends sets. I understand why it's done, just don't really agree with it.

The build

Two numbered bags in this set, one for the plane, one for the Flying Club set pieces. The build is actually pretty satisfying, it's similar in design to past LEGO planes of this size, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's pretty quick to build to, the only problem some may have with it is the fact that stickers are used for details instead of printed details.

The stickers aren't a deal breaker honeslty, and they don't interfere too badly in the build process, some placement may require help though from steadier hands.

The completed model

The overall design of this Pontoon Plane is very enjoyable to build and look at, it works quite nicely with a great blend of colours. A great aspect of this build is that the new control yoke piece is used to actually fly the plane, most other Planes I've built personally usually stuck with Steering wheels or the small LEGO control levers, this is much more accurate to what a real pilot would fly with and it enhances the design quite nicely.

The landing dock section is a bit on the smallish side, it still works and looks great. You can park the plane beside it and Olivia's Speedboat, but not the Dolphin Cruiser because it would look far too out of scale.

The small open-air building in this set is up to interpretation, it has the Heartlake Flying Club logo on it, this is another sticker not printed detail. I'm not too sure what it's meant to be, some sort of place where Stephanie pays her instructor maybe? It's a decent looking building and fits the design of the set, an actual flying instructor Mini-Doll would have made more sense to include in the set though.

Summary

Overall I think this is a pretty decent set once it's built, it features a lot of good design cues and details and works well as part of Heartlake City. The price isn't too bad either, it could have used two Mini-Dolls though because without any kind of flight instructor it means that Stephanie is kind of self-teaching herself.

I'd say it's worth tracking down, LEGO Friends is a really popular brand come Christmas a lot of retailers have been selling out faster and faster, the brand is just really that high a seller. So finding this still at retail may be a bit tricky, I'd recommend it for fans of this Theme though. And with it retiring soon it's definitely worth grabbing. The pieces alone are worth the price of the set, especially the crab. I believe it'll look nice as a companion piece for the new Summer Beach House Stephanie's getting next year.

An avid AFOL myself, I was thrilled when LEGO announced Friends. I'm also a pilot and love all things aviation, so I was thrilled when I saw the floatplane set announced. It was purchased as soon as it hit the Walmart shelves and my 5-yo girl had it assembled in just a few minutes.

First, the bad parts. The scale of the floatplane is way off from being close to realistic. Unlike other aviation sets that allow minifigs to sit in the aircraft with some room to spare, fitment of a minifig seems to have been an afterthought. Also, the scale of the wings and propeller were about 3/4 of what they should have been. One minifig sort of takes away from playability, unless she's running a one-girl show from tickets to flights. A second one would have helped a bunch here.

There were several good parts, too. First, the variety of colors lends nicely to the other Friends sets and doesn't stand out as oddballs in our LEGO city. The pastels are wonderful and TLG did a nice job mixing it up on this set.

The floats, or pontoons, are sturdy! These are meant for playing rough. With several braces and lapped joints, they don't fall off easily when being played with. Use of a grip control vs. the standard steering wheel was a nice touch in the cockpit and would be normal in this type of plane. The dock was thought out nicely with an observation deck and a few cute animals that my daughters love. The ticket booth is a nice feature that allows additional playability if you have other minifigs or a second player.

Overall, I'm not disappointed and this set joins many other aircraft at our airport, but on the water side. My girls don't seem to notice the scale discrepancy and gravitate towards this one. Not the best from TLG, but I'm happy I didn't let it pass me by before it goes to the vault.