Scale Aircraft Conversions specializes in white-metal replacement parts, now including the 1/48 Airfix Meteor F.8.

The set includes 10 parts with the following breakdown:

• Nose gear main strut
• Nose gear retraction strut
• Nose gear wheel housing halves (2)
• Main gear struts & wheel housing halves (2)
• Main wheel housing halves (2)
• Main gear retraction struts (2)

These parts are drop-in replacements; the white metal parts actually are

the equivalent to several plastic parts, and interchangeable as they fit the plastic parts almost perfectly.

In the case of the Airfix Meteor, there is a recommendation of adding a 15g nose weight, and the metal gear weigh about 12g (kit parts weigh 2g), so I do not know if a little more weight will be needed to balance the aircraft. White metal nose gear do tend to add more weight and in the case of the Meteor there isn't much in front of it, so perhaps it will suffice.

The main gear retraction struts are molded to their runners with a rather thick base. It took quite a bit of careful sawing to free the part. This resulted in bent scissors even after I had removed the opposite runner. In the photos of the installed gear, I used the plastic struts with the metal main gear. As a bonus, I used the new Gunze Red Primer 1200 on the bottom section of the wing. IT sprays very nicely.

Recommended to modelers with an intermediate skill level.

I would like to thank Scale Aircraft Conversions and IPMS/USA for the review sample.