More metal gear from Ross at SAC; another winner… THANKS VERY MUCH for sending IPMS USA another of your expansive line of metal landing gear, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it on to me to review….

This is the SAC-standard metal landing gear improvement over the kit plastic. Roden, bless’em, makes kits nobody else does. WE NOW HAVE A 1/144 C-141B thanks to them! Buy them up so they can finance other models (Hint: a decent 1/144 C-5A next we hope… the “R” re-engined version with the CF-6 can come later!)

I’m impressed with this kit; fit is ok, few locator pins, but the exterior is definitely the right aircraft with the right appearance. The engine intakes are very well done, with positive installation for the nacelles into the wing. The ‘141B is a simple aircraft. I’m going to contemplate making an interior for this kit, as the clear cockpit windows scream for detail instead of a flat area painted black. We’ll see…

Rubber tires on models have always been a problem for me, largely because of the unstable nature of rubber and vinyl. I’ve had numerous tires (and treads) crack with age, melt plastic hubs, or otherwise wreak havoc on lovingly-made models which I’d hoped to remain pristine for years.

That being said, I must admit that Trumpeter’s 1/32^nd scale Sturmovik comes with a very nice set of rubber tires. They feature a detailed and realistic tread and certainly look good in and of themselves. So why purchase the Aires set?

First, they ARE resin rather than rubber. Consequently, they will last over time much better than the rubber tires, which will outgas and eventually fail in one spectacular manner or another. That’s just the nature of the material, alas.

Second, they have been crafted with a very nice flattened area that reproduces weight on the tires realistically. The rubber tires simply don’t reproduce this feature as well.

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). The B-17 was primarily employed by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the daylight strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial and military targets. The United States Eighth Air Force, based at many airfields in central and southern England, and the Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, complemented the RAF Bomber Command's nighttime area bombing in the Combined Bomber Offensive to help secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for the invasion of France in 1944. The B-17 also participated to a lesser extent in the War in the Pacific, early in World War II, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping and airfields.