I didn't notice any cracks in my cowl but, it has a very thin coat of paint on it & feels very fragile. The packing is not up to Great Planes standards in my opinion also. The covering on my plane has many wrinkles in it and its not applied very well. There are many where one color covering is over another color and I,m not sure I will be able to remove them without shrinking one so much that it pulls away from the other. Great Planes may be getting this one back. Their quality from my experience has been much better than this. Maybe this is what I get for ordering one from the first production run.