On Monday, our distributor released product information pertaining to Hobby Master’s latest spate of aircraft models. What piqued our interest wasn’t so much the new models slated for a mid 2023 release. Rather, what caught our eye was this single sentence that appeared in the body of the announcement’s cover letter. “In the coming days, we will announce an assortment of fully licensed US Navy replicas.” As part of the announcement, they also indicated that one of their upcoming F/A-18 Hornets, one clad in a US Navy Blue Angels aerobatics squadron scheme, was being upped in price, meaning that any additional aircraft models paying homage to the Blue Angels would likely carry a “licensed by the US Navy” logo emblazoned on its packaging. Or the sentence could mean something else entirely.

With Top Gun: Maverick continuing to do exceptionally well at the box office its plausible to presume that Hobby Master has or is about to lock up the coveted Top Gun license, otherwise why claim an assortment of aircraft will be announced instead of a lone Blue Angels model. If true, collectors can likely expect to see a wide range of aircraft models based on not only the 2022 film but quite likely the original flick. Done right, and with a wide range of accessories to support them, running the gamut from aircraft revetments to action figures, its quite possible that Hobby Master may have pulled off quite the coup, ponying up the big bucks for what many believe is an evergreen license that will continue to sell well for years to come. We don’t want to jump the gun and claim that all manner of Top Gun merchandise is in the works even if we’d love to shout it out from the mountaintop depicted in the film. What I will do, however, is watch for further announcements in the days and weeks ahead and update our blog post with any further developments just as soon as they’re passed along.