Lego Compatible Set Review: Keeppley K10211 Long March 2F and Shenzhou Spacecraft

 

Hello brick fans and rocket fans!

Keeppley/Enlighten has released their latest Chinese Aerospace sets for 2022 and I'll be reviewing one of the sets from the theme.  Today's set review is the Long March 2F rocket and Shenzhou spacecraft.  This is a kit that includes both spacecraft.

About the Long March rocket and Shenzhou spacecraft

The Long March 2F two stage rocket is part of the Chinese Long March family of rockets. It first went into service in 1999 to replace it's troublesome predecessor the Long March 2E.  It was used to successfully launch the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft carrying China's first astronaut into space.  Both of the Long March and Shenzhou spacecraft are still being used today.

Here are the respective wiki pages for both the Long March rocket and the Shenzhou spacecraft.

This Keeppley Long March 2F set is just one of several Aerospace sets that can be found on  Afobrick.com, one of the leading online retailers of Lego compatible building block sets.   Afobrick.com provides free worldwide shipping and free parts replacement if needed.

Here are the set details

The Brand:  Keeppley

Set name: K10211 Long March 2F and ShenZhou Spacecraft

Theme: Aerospace

Ages: 6+

Number of Pieces: approx 813 pcs (by my count)

Stickers:  None

Printed parts: Yes, quite a few!

Minifigures: None

Missing or deformed pieces:  None!

Extra parts leftover: Yes!

Check it out here:

https://afobrick.com/en-ca/products/keeppley-k10211-long-march-2f-and-shenzhou-spacecraft

Don't forget to save another 5% off if you use ITSNOTLEGO at checkout

I like the fact that Keeppley always numbers their bags of parts and each bag corresponds to the section you are building in the included instruction manual.  The Long March set also comes with 5 sectional bags, 2 supplementary parts bags and 2 16x16 baseplates.

Interestingly, although the Keeppley set number is designated as K10211, my manual says K10212.  

I'm wondering if I got the Chinese domestic version of the set, as the wording in the manual is in Chinese.  The first two pages of the manual look like the specifications for the spacecraft.  The rest of the manual and instructions is pretty much intuitive and language agnostic.

The manual has 70 pages with steps A1 thru A73 (pages 1 thru 34) building the Long March rocket and steps B1 thru B130 (pages 35 thru 70) building the Shenzhou spacecraft and it's stand.

The bricks in this set were very high quality and they clutched really well. As a result, I never had to use the brick separator that was included.

Step One: Launchpad

Step Two: Main stage rocket and booster rockets

Here are the four booster rockets that are easily clipped on to the main rocket fuselage.  As I soon came to discover, there are quite a few printed parts and no stickers whatsoever, yay!

The main rocket shown with boosters attached and installed onto the launchpad.  Yes, those are printed parts on the main rocket, not stickers.

Step Three: The Payload Section

The payload on the Long March rocket can either be the Shenzhou spacecraft or parts of the Tiangong space station.   The payload flaps and chinese flag on the fairing are printed parts.

Here is the assembled Long March 2F rocket which stands approximately 21 inches high.

Not sure why, but there isn't any printing on the reverse side of the rocket.

Step Four: Shenzhou spacecraft

Step four builds the Shenzhou spacecraft consisting of three modules. From top to bottom, these are the orbital module, the reentry module in the middle and the service module.  

Step Five: The Solar Panels and Display Stand

Printed pieces for the solar panels.

The trans blue stand is adjustable.

The solar panels can be swivelled.

I've placed one of my minifigures with the Shenzhou spacecraft so you can get  a sense of the scale of the assembled model.  I think the Shenzhou would have to be increased by another 3 to 4 times in size to be minifig scale (just guessing).

Oh, did you know that the Shenzhou spacecraft was featured in the movie Sandra Bullock/George Clooney movie Gravity?

After building the Long March rocket, I thought it would be fun to see if I can make it look like it was lifting off from the launchpad.  See the before and after pics below.

The rocket was originally secured to the base/launchpad via a short technic pin. I replaced it with a much longer pin to raise the rocket ship off of the base.  Then, I attached some flame pieces to each of the rocket and booster nozzles.  What do you think of the mod, does it make the rocket look better?  Let me know!

This was a satisfying building set that took less than a day to complete.  Although the parts count is not indicated anywhere, neither on the manual or on the Afobrick website.  I did a manual count of all the pieces used.

The Long March 2F rocket consisted of 400 pieces.  That included 195 pieces for the stand, 116 pieces to build the 4 booster rockets and 89 pieces for the main rocket.

The Shenzhou spacecraft is comprised of 421 pieces and 12 pieces of trans-blue parts for the stand.  Total part count came to 833 pieces, by my estimation.

I wanted to take some of my wife's cotton balls that she uses to clean her face, to simulate the smoke billowing from the rockets, but sadly, she said no.  😞

This set makes a nice display piece for anyone who enjoys model rockets.

One day, maybe, I will build a launch tower next to the rocket and increase the size of the launchpad.  But I will save that for another project.  Anyways, thx for looking.

Here's the set link again: https://afobrick.com/en-ca/products/keeppley-k10211-long-march-2f-and-shenzhou-spacecraft and remember to use my discount code itsnotlego to get another 5% off.

Bye!