Scale Aircraft Conversions has been around for quite some time providing excellent aftermarket options for aircraft modelers. In the case of this set released in June of this year, we have a selection of white metal parts to replace the kit landing gear strut parts from the ICM line of Hampdens. It provides a stronger, more durable alternative to the kit parts.

What’s Inside the Box

Inside the bubble plastic and cardboard container are parts to replace the main landing struts and tailwheel strut. In the comparison photo accompanying this review text, the SAC white metal gear is on the left and the kit gear is on the right. In inserting the gear wheel into the metal strut, the arms pushed away a bit, but the white metal is malleable enough to squeeze back into position. Upon installing the strut, I ran into an issue with the middle section being too long to where the two side posts didn’t reach their sockets, so I had to trim it down to get it to work.

In the Box

The kit comes in a sturdy 12” x 8” x 5” box with an illustration of the Tsubaki figure. Images of the finished model can be found on the box sides. Like Gundam kits, it comes molded in multiple colors so that a nicely finished model can be built right out of the box with minimal work. Both painted and unpainted images of the kit are shown on the sides of the box. The kit comes with thirty nine individually bagged sprues molded in eight colors. The engineering of the parts is designed to emulate the paint breaks of the figures complex color scheme. The runners are molded in POM, PVC and ABS and all the parts are designed to be snap fit. Regular solvent based glue will not affect these types of plastic. Figure kits are meant to be posable, thus tougher plastics are necessary so that the joints will both hold a pose and be durable.

For years the only way you could get an AH/MH-6 Little Bird in 1/48^th scale was to buy a Hasegawa Hughes 500 and a CMK conversion set. This was expensive and sometimes hard to find. Now, thanks to ICM, we can build both kits out of the box. This review is about the MH-6J.

Inside a sturdy cardboard box with a cover are two light grey plastic and one clear plastic. They are beautifully rendered with no flash. The fuselage has some of the nicest raised rivet detail that I’ve ever seen. Very in scale. This is a good/bad thing. Good in that you can see it is there, but bad when filling the seams and sanding. You can’t replace any lost detail with decal film because it is so petite. There is also a decal sheet with markings for two Little Birds. The instructions are beautifully presented on 12 high-quality pages in a booklet, that are easy to understand. You will have to be familiar with very small parts as there are plenty of them in this kit.