This set includes two complete sets of landing gear for Eduard’s recent Spitfire Mk. IXe and Mk. XVI kits. Each set is comprised of 5 pieces: two main struts, two scissor links, and a tailwheel with the strut. The parts are drop-in replacements for the kit parts.

As the struts are small and space around them on the casting tree is pretty tight, the first thing I did was to use a razor saw to separate the parts from the casting tree. To keep myself from getting confused, I removed one set only so that I could match the parts up with the ones left on the casting tree and keep left and right straight.

History

The Macchi M.5 was a flying-boat fighter developed by the Nieuport Macchi company of Varese in early 1917 and introduced in service in autumn 1917. Initially armed with a single Fiat machine-gun, and featuring a tail structure held on struts, the production M.5 had an armament of two Vickers guns and a tail structure resting on the fuselage. It was an extremely fast and maneuverable airplane, that managed to gain an ascendancy over the enemy seaplane fighters and even claimed victories against the Phönix land fighters.

In the introduction to one of David Doyle's latest offerings, he writes: The M551 Sheridan is often referred to as a light tank, but in actuality it was an armored reconnaissance/airborne assault vehicle. The M551 was designed to be a lightweight, amphibious, air-dropable vehicle armed with a massive 152 mm gun that doubled as a rocket launcher. The gun launcher was designed to fire the MGM-51 Shillelagh antitank missile, or 152 mm conventional rounds with a combustible cartridge case. The vehicles saw extensive use in Vietnam, Operation Just Cause in Panama (where they saw their only combat air drop), and Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The Sheridan ended its service with the US Army masquerading as Soviet Bloc vehicles at the National Training Center.