When I received the aftermarket SAC landing gear for the 1/72 Academy P38 Lightning I went to get out the kit I had and realized the one I had was 1/48 scale, so I had to quick get one off ebay to do the review. Once I found one at a reasonable price and received the kit I finally got down to business. I opened the kit and got the SAC gear out for comparison. After removing the gear from the kit sprues I laid them out to compare them side by side. I was kind of disappointed with the look of the SAC gear, they had some flash on the gear and some mold lines that were very noticeable. Then I looked over the kit gear and found that Academy has some very good gear right out of the box, the mold lines and crisp detail were almost better than the SAC gear.

The Ryan ST was a trainer used in the early 1940’s. The sleek airframe and Menasco inline engine made for a pretty hot little ship.

You can build either a U.S. Army Air Force PT-20, or a Dutch STM-2 on floats or one of two Australian STM-2’s from this kit.

I received the package in excellent condition. It was in a nice sturdy box surrounded by enough tissue paper to use for the next three holidays. The actual model box is another sturdy package with all the parts again wrapped in tissue for protection. Each part was either enclosed in a zip lock plastic bag or wrapped in tissue. I found no loose, broken or damaged items. I took inventory and everything was accounted for.

This F4U-4 Corsair wheel bay update set is packaged in the typical Aires fashion, coming in a sturdy plastic package with foam backing, and instructions tucked in between the cardboard back and plastic. My first impression was of how crisp the detail is on the wheel bays, as well as the gear doors. Mold release agent is non-existent; however, I still recommend washing the resin before use.

Compared to the Hobby Boss kit parts, which are decent, the Aires wheel bays are very sharp and have more details, such as more pronounced ribs and wiring. The landing gear door’s interior and exterior surfaces show very few differences between the Hobby Boss kit parts and the Aires replacements, with the exception of the superior detail on the interior surface of Aires’ small forward landing gear doors.

Master Model from Poland makes turned metal parts for ships and aircraft. They can be used for replacements or, more importantly, improvements. The set reviewed here is for Trumpeter’s 1/48 RA-5C Vigilante kit. The set consists of two turned brass parts to replace the AOA sensor and pitot tube. The parts come in the usual pouch, and have a nice set of instructions. You will have to drill a small hole for the AOA sensor.

There is a great picture of the pitot here.

The usual comments of appreciation to Ross at SAC for continuing to provide us review items; we at IPMS USA sincerely appreciate your contributions!

Unlike other landing gear on kits, Kittyhawk have provided a sturdy but complex design to emulate the actual landing gear on the Mig 25. If you have ever worked on or around Russian gear, you know that it is built like a tank, but sometimes can be a bit complicated. The Mig 23 comes to mind, but surprisingly the Mig 25 main gear is ALSO a complex assembly.