The Aircraft

Boeing’s 737-700, -8MAX and -800 are medium sized “single aisle” jet airliners. They are easily identifiable by their single winglets, which first appeared on the -700. Later 737s have a double winglet.

I chose the 737-800 because it’s the variant used by QANTAS, which I flew from Melbourne to Cairns Australia in the spring of 2019.

The Scale Aircraft Conversions Set

You get two sets of gear parts in this set. This could be useful if you decide you also want to do a -800 or even a -8MAX. The parts are all white metal, and they fit nicely in place of the kit parts.

Painting

In this case, all of the gear legs were white. Easy to paint. There are a couple of hydraulic shock absorbers which are silver. Also easy.

This was done in conjunction with the Platz 1/144 F-5E/N kit which I also reviewed.

This set consists of a brass pitot, two 20mm guns, and a fairing which can replace one of the guns.

The upgrade is pretty simple. You get a .3mm drill. Remove the kit pitot and drill a hole there. The guns require a little more work, as there isn’t a good place to start drilling. I began by using a #1 blade to dig the guns out, then drilled the .3 mm holes. Then I installed the pitot and the guns. I had to use a little filler under the guns to get them looking good.

I painted the guns area with the same gray I used to paint the model, then highlighted the guns. I used Testors “Burnt Metal” for these, as I find gun metal to be too dark. The pitot was painted Neutral Grey along with the nose area. The Master pitot is about 1/3 the thickness of the kit pitot, so it’s more to scale.

And the project was done. Looks good.

This white metal landing gear set was specifically designed as the replacement for the latest 2019 Eduard model of the Tempest Mk.V. There are now two such kits as single kits and dual kit ‘Royal Class’ boxing affording the modeler to build several of the Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC).

The SAC gear provides the modeler with a replacement while metal landing gear set, including the main gear and the rear tail strut. One great advantage of the SAC metal gear is their ability to be bent where necessary to more accurately sit on the gear.