MH-60L Black Hawk Landing Gear (KH)
This landing gear set by Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC) is for the Kitty Hawk MH-60L Black Hawk kit, although it can be used on the Kitty Hawk HH-60G Pave Hawk as well. For this review I used the gear on the Pave Hawk version kit.
Kit Contents
The landing gear comes in SAC’s typical blister pack with some of the parts loose and some attached to a metal casting sprue. The kit includes 10 parts, six for the front and rear landing gear, and four for the weapons sponson supports that mount above the main gear on the Black Hawk. I did not use the supports for the Pave Hawk version.
Parts
The parts are cast in soft white metal that leaves mold seems on most of the parts. The mold seems can be easily cleaned up with an X-Acto blade, sanding sticks, or small files. Light sanding will smooth the texture of the white metal. Detail on the parts is very crisp and some of the parts appear to have even sharper detail than the kit parts. SAC uses the kit parts to make their molds but will frequently clean up the kit part prior to molding.
Tail Gear
The SAC tail gear is molded in two pieces compared to the single piece mold of the kit part. The second part includes the piping similar to the kit part. The Kitty Hawk strut has a small piece over the axle to capture the tail wheel. The SAC strut is molded in one piece. The stirrups for the tail wheel can easily be spread apart to install the wheel. This also facilitates painting of the strut separate from the wheel.
Main Gear
The main gear is molded in two pieces by SAC, similar to the two-piece kit gear. SAC’s gear fits nicely into place without any modifications to the kit.
Painting
I used Mission Models gray primer and gunmetal to paint the parts. Solder was used to add piping to the tail gear.
Summary
SAC’s landing gear is a much stronger alternative to Kitty Hawk’s kit parts. I bent the tail gear while handling during construction, a blow that surely would have broken plastic gear. The SAC gear was easily bent back into shape. The detail on the SAC parts is comparable to the Kitty Hawk kit parts and they are a nice addition to the kit.
Thanks to Scale Aircraft Conversions for making landing gear sets for so many different aircraft, and for supplying review samples to IPMS.
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