First off I’d like to thank Scale Aircraft Conversions for making this detail set available for review and thank IMPS/USA for allowing me to do the review.

Most of us are familiar with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. But, for the one or two who are wondering what an Fw190 is, the following synopsis is provided. During World War II the Fw 190 was a German single-seat fighter aircraft powered by a single radial engine. It and its sister aircraft, the Bf109, made up the majority of the Luftwaffe’s fighter aircraft. The Fw190 is arguably the best fighter Germany had in its inventory. It was used in a variety of rolls including day fighter, night fighter, fighter-bomber, and ground-attack aircraft. It was very popular with the Luftwaffe pilots. And so it is with today’s modelers. At any show you will see a number of Fw190s on the table vying for recognition. One way to make your model look as crisp and sharp as possible is through the use of after-market parts.

Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC) is in the business of doing just that. One of their new releases is a set of white metal parts for the Fw190. The set includes the main landing gear struts, associated actuating members, tail gear with wheel, a pitot tube and a loop antenna for the FuG 16 ZY radio. I used the Airfix Focke-Wulf Fw190F-8/A-8 (kit #A02066) as comparison for this review.

Let’s compare the kit struts and actuating arms to the SAC parts. The kit parts are very well done. However, the SAC parts have a little better definition with the oleo scissors not being quite as thick as the kit parts. This same observation can be made of the actuating arms. The accompanying comparative photo shows the crispness of the SAC parts.

There is more to discuss about the remaining SAC parts. The kit’s pitot tube comes molded into the starboard wing’s leading edge. It has that same roundness all molded kit tubes have. The SAC tube has better detail with almost a needle point. The kit’s tail strut and wheel comes with two options – one part for the gear extended and one part for a retracted configuration. Again, both are nicely done, but the SAC part has a little better definition. See the photo below. There is only the extended gear part in the SAC set for obvious reasons. Not found in the kit is the radio loop antenna. The SAC set does included this as a small bonus.

The landing gear parts offered by SAC are a direct replacement for the kit parts. There are even locating holes for the gear doors. The same interfacing features between the struts and actuators on the kit parts are found on the SAC parts. The kit’s pitot will have to be removed and a small hole drilled to accept the SAC tube. This little bit of extra work will be well worth the effort. There may be some very minor clean-up required on the SAC parts – less than on the plastic parts. A word of caution. The loop antenna and pitot tube are fragile and should be handled with care.

I find it easy to recommend this set of detail parts to those modelers who want to add a little crisper detail to their model without an undo amount of work.

Thanks again to Scale Aircraft Conversions and IPMS/USA for the opportunity to do this review.