Set Review - Sea Plane 31028

Welcome aboard, 2015 sets!  This marks the first review of the new offerings.  Thankfully I've got a queue a mile long which should take me at least past Bricks Cascade 2015.  We'll start off with the new Creator mini sets.  Last year TLG released three tiny box sets; Red Thunder, Power Digger, and Emerald Express.  I'm not sure if we need to expect a third box set in June or if this is it for the year.  Sorry Creator, your division is taking a 33% cut.

The box and instructions show that you can also build a personal hydroplane and a sailboat.  The hydroplane is OK, the sailboat (or catamaran, I suppose) is very clever.  I didn't bother to build either of those models, but I did attempt a helicopter.  It seems so common for airplanes and helicopters to interchange their parts with each other that I wondered why TLG designers didn't give it a try.  Then I tried attaching overhead rotors and realized that maybe they had tried.  Dud.

This sea plane makes use of some of the newer elements and one brand new one.  Tim over at New Elementary covered the 1x2 plate with opposing handles last month.  There are also some inverted curved slopes and baby bows.  The new handled plate is used to attach the pontoon assembly in a rather unique way.  Were it not for a 1x6 cross member between the two pontoons, this connection would remind me of Goofy on skis.  Maybe someone got excited about using new parts (not something that the Creator division can commission) and was tired of completely brick built solutions. Whatever the reason, it's an unexpected but pleasant little connection.

The whole build is much stubbier than the box art would lead me to believe.  Maybe the Creator division wanted to get in on some Chibi?  Oh wait, they tried that last year with some non splendid results.  Okay, not sure what the deal is but two of these stacked on top of each other would just about fit into a perfect cube.

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