Review : LEGO ICONS 10360 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

Today we are taking a quick look at the contents of the LEGO ICONS set. 10360 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a box of 2417 pieces which will be available as an Insiders preview from May 15, 2025 at a public price of €229,99 before general availability scheduled for May 18, 2025.

As you know, if you've been following along, this is about assembling the Boeing 747 that transported the shuttle Enterprise from its landing field to its launch base at the Kennedy Space Center. The version offered here is the one that was used in 1977 to test the approach and landing phases of the shuttle Enterprise, the latter ultimately never being put into orbit. The plane/shuttle combination delivered by LEGO is the one that was presented at the Paris Air Show in 1983.

The overall construction measures 63cm long, 53,5cm wide and 27cm tall, and comes with two small display plates attached to the model stand.

Let's not kid ourselves, there's reason to be a little wary when discovering the aesthetics of this construction. The product seems to come from a time when the LEGO inventory wasn't as substantial as it is today, and we get the impression that the designer struggled to find a way to offer us two machines with very approximate shapes.

I know that many will be happy to accept this, perhaps a little blinded by their passion for anything remotely related to space exploration, but it must be acknowledged that while the shuttle Enterprise performs honorably, the Boeing 747 has more difficulty resembling the reference aircraft.

One could overlook the aircraft's appearance and console oneself with the five synchronized landing gears that can be deployed and retracted using a wheel located under the 747's fuselage, or settle for the ability to put the shuttle Enterprise into flight configuration thanks to the presence of engines and wheels that attach to the fuselage after removing the tail cone used during the shuttle's transport on the back of the 747.

But it's 2025, and we're entitled to expect something aesthetically more accomplished from the toy leader, while other, more modest manufacturers are doing better in this area. LEGO didn't see fit to include anything to close the compartment that houses the Boeing 747's landing gear, so we'll have to make do.

Sorry if I sound insistent, but the presence of barrels at the exit of the 747 engines bothers me. We can consider that the choice of this part is interesting if we are a fan of NPU (For Nice Part Usage) at LEGO but I find these elements completely irrelevant here and their presence only reinforces in me the feeling that the designer really made do with what he had on hand.

One could also discuss the number of visible studs on the 747's wings, the somewhat undersized engines, or the lack of flaps on the plane's wings, especially on a supposedly high-end model intended to appeal to an adult audience. But I think that would be a waste of time; the product is in any case far from what we would expect from a manufacturer like LEGO in 2025.

The shuttle is attached to the back of the Boeing via three ball joints, so there's no risk of it coming loose during handling. The attachment system could have benefited from a little more detail on the two connection points at the rear; this is a model for adults, not just a children's toy.

The assembly comprising the 747 and the shuttle is of very acceptable solidity, the wings are not at risk of detaching and the whole thing is rigid enough to be handled knowing that the black support is not fixed to the fuselage of the Boeing.

LEGO could have produced the elements that would have allowed us to offer a Boeing with a less angular front end, but the manufacturer probably judged the expense to be unnecessary and forced its designer to make do with the parts already available. The result is therefore barely passable, rather vintage and frankly disappointing up close.

I won't reveal the insides of the 747 with the rather complex mechanism that allows the landing gear to be deployed; it's almost the only interesting and convincing part of the construction, and we must leave something to marvel at for all those who spend the €230 requested by LEGO.

A detail: if you notice that you have some orange pieces left at the end of the assembly, this is normal, they only serve to hold the different sub-assemblies during the construction phase in the same way as what LEGO already offered in the LEGO ICONS set 10318 Concorde.

This pure exhibition product does not escape a large sheet of stickers with stickers on a transparent background for the two machines and two stickers on a black background for the presentation plates.

If the choice of transparency for the stickers to be stuck on the fuselage of the 747 and the shuttle seems relevant to me to avoid the usual differences in color between the white of the stickers and that of the pieces on which they are placed, I do not understand why LEGO did not deign to pad print the two small presentation plates. Even those of the collections of helmets or ships in the format midi-scale from the LEGO Star Wars range are pad printed.

As usual, everything you don't see on the sticker sheet that I scanned for you is therefore pad printed, i.e. the 27 pieces that make up the edging of the fuselage of the 747 as well as the canopy and the nose of the latter, with the usual problems of alignment and conformity of color with the Tiles which connect the patterns in certain places.

The product assembly is entertaining, no problems on this side, with original techniques and the feeling that the designer did his best by seeking solutions that are not always aesthetically satisfying but technically convincing.

This leaves one question unanswered: should the aesthetics of a display model be sacrificed to provide an assembly experience that meets the expectations of the brand's customers when it seems impossible to reconcile the two? I don't have an absolute answer to this question, but I think the compromise proposed here is not really aesthetically satisfactory. The comparison is probably off-topic, but the planes in the LEGO CITY range fare better because the manufacturer produces suitable parts, probably sacrificing some of the assembly experience.

Even if the subject covered is ultimately almost anecdotal on the scale of everything that contributed to the conquest of Space, this product could play second fiddle in a collection composed of the most emblematic sets on the same theme such as the LEGO IDEAS references 92176 NASA Apollo Saturn V., LEGO ICONS 10341 NASA Artemis Space Launch System or Creator Expert 10266 NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander.

Those who already have the Discovery shuttle from the LEGO ICONS set on hand 10283 NASA Space Shuttle Discovery (2021) may, for their part, possibly skip it unless the subject covered here seems interesting to them, those who were hoping that LEGO would give us a demonstration a little more convincing than that of the LEGO ICONS set 10318 Concorde (2023) in terms of finishing the nose of the plane will be at their expense and in my opinion we can predict without too much error that this box which could have pleasantly surprised me in 2000 or 2010 will end up among the sets on sale during the next Black Friday.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at May 18, 2025 at 23:59 pm. Just post a comment under the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. Avoid "I'm participating" or "I'm trying my luck", we suspect that this is the case.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.