Once again SAC comes up with a solution to the problem of failing Plastic Landing gear on a “different design” landing gear situation.

The idea of “dead cockroach” landing gear is not new; it is a solution to a problem aircraft designers have had to deal with for years. My personal favorite are all the Cessna’s (Cardinal and Skymaster come to mind) which had the gear partially extend or retract, making for dicey and spectacular landings when the pilot runs out of fuel and absolutely HAS to land. Videos are out there, go to Youtube or whatever to see for yourself.

Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC) is a Texas based company that makes white metal landing gear for a vast number of model aircraft in all scales.

The idea behind the use of metal over the kit supplied plastic landing gear is strength. Over time plastic can give way under the weight of heavy aircraft models.

The metal parts are contained in a clear plastic tray with an attractive color backing showing product details.

While examining each item, it was apparent that masters of the original plastic parts were copied and molded into white metal. Some items needed bending back to shape and straightened a little due to soft nature of the metal.

The general molding was quite clean, but seams would need to be cleaned up. Working with the white metal and cleaning up mold seam lines is detailed on SAC’s comprehensive website.

I was a bit taken aback as the name of the book as stated above gives the impression that the book will be dealing with the air forces of all Latin American countries. Then, upon receiving the book I find that this volume addresses Argentina. There is more clarification on the back cover of the book the title given is Air Forces Series, Volume 1. So more to come and already, Volume 2 covers Columbia. This is a series of books about the various Air Forces of Latin American countries but a little more clarification on the titleon the web site would have been beneficial to the reader/buyer.

The book starts with a brief history of the Argentinean Air Force from its creation in 10/08/1912 until the present. It describes their first planes and ends with the present roster of planes for the six branches of service as follows:

This book is fascinating both from the historical point of view and for the military figure modeler point of view.

It consists of a series of watercolor copies of the original lithographs depicting military uniforms of the Napoleonic era. It should be pointed out that the original collection was completed after Napoleon’s death and during a period where anything related to Napoleon was -politically- out of favor. Moreover, the original collection is considered a milestone document as not only images are included, but each depiction also has accompanying text describing details of the uniform or the unit.

This particular edition also has 5 illustrations that are not part of the original collection but fit the era and scope of the edition, so they were included to provide an even rounder documentation of military uniforms of the French Imperial Army in the 1798-1814 period.

OKB Grigorov specializes in resin, photoetch and turned metal barrel conversions for armor. One of their latest releases is the wheels for the German Tiger (P), Ferdinand and Elefant (Early)

This aftermarket set includes parts in grey resin. As you can see from the pictures, the casting of the parts is pretty good, without any bubbles in the resin and small attachment points.

This set provides 12 double wheels (running wheels) and the pictures show the fantastic level of detail of the tracks, both inside and outside sides.

Only the running wheels are provided in the set. No sprocket wheels are provided in the set, although the Tracks set includes them (see review elsewhere in this website).

Overall, this set is well done and will require minimum cleaning of the parts for assembly.

Highly recommended, mainly for those modelers looking to super-detail their kits.

I would like to thank OKB Grigorov and IPMS/USA for the review sample.