Review – Matchbox Sky Busters Stealth Launch

The Matchbox Sky Busters series (Amazon.com search*) constantly catches my eye when I’m in stores, but it wasn’t until I spotted Stealth Launch that I just had to buy some jets. The swept-forward wing design couldn’t be ignored or forgotten, and now I’ve found myself with three variants of what turned out to be a toy I would have loved when I was eight.

Plastic or Metal?

The gray and black Stealth Launch toys shown here were bought last year while the orange version was bought last weekend. What’s unusual is that the first two I purchased feel lighter and more plastic all around while the orange version is heavier and might even be metal. But that can’t be, right? It’s just some weird trick my brain is playing on me and they’re all made of the same material . . . right? I think what’s happening is that all three are made of plastic, but the newest design’s just a different batch and feels a bit more rigid. Yeah, they have to all be made of plastic. If not, then Mattel spent money for tooling a metal verson, and that just doesn’t make any sense. Right?

Sculpt

The Stealth Launch looks both incredible and unbelievable all at once. I’ve seen swept-forward wing designs on jets before — we all have — but I don’t remember any with swept-forward tail fins and maneuvering foils. Take a look at the photos and you’ll see that every wing on the jet — with the exception of the underside tail fins — is angled forward. As I said, unbelievable . . . but quite incredible and fun.

The other cool feature is the main body of the jet and how the angular lines of the air intakes are set so far back on the jet’s design. Usually these are a lot closer to the nose of the jet; I don’t know if the design of the toy would ever fly, but it sure looks awesome with the cockpit riding so far forward of the jet’s main hull. Great sculpt, and there are even sculpted missiles under the wings to give this monster aircraft some teeth.

Paint

As you can see by the photos, the three different versions of Stealth Launch sport completely unique paint and tampo apps. The gray and black versions are the more basic designs, while that orange jet with purple and orange lightning bolts on the wings shows what can happen when someone decides to treat the surface of the jet as a canvas and not to treat the entire thing like a military aircraft. Just as with Mattel’s Hot Wheels series these Matchbox jets have perfect paint and tampos; I may complain about Mattel’s action figure paint apps at times, but when it comes to toy vehicles the company almost always knocks it out of the park.

One Flaw

Overall, Stealth Launch is great and has me considering grabbing a few more jets in the Matchbox Sky Busters series (Amazon.com search*). Great sculpts and nice colors, but there is one problem that makes me hesitate before buying more: The landing gear are fixed in place and cannot retract. I know that collapsible landing gear would have added to the expense, but fixed gear just feels cheap on what is otherwise a quality design. I know I wasn’t likely to display the jets by hanging them, but if I was a kid playing with these those fixed gear would nag at me and annoy me even more than they do now. The decision to lock the gear in place feels, to me, like a bad choice.

Closing Thoughts

The landing gear problem may nag at me, but for the $3 to $4/jet that I paid for these I can overlook the flaw and just be happy with what is a trio of very cool jet fighter toys. As I said, the designs are unbelievable, but I just don’t care that these would be unlikely to ever really fly. They look far too cool for me to give a damn about little things like realism. These are fun! And that’s all that matters to me at the moment.

Philip Reed keeps his eye open for more variants on this design. Does anyone know of any Stealth Launch toys that he has missed?