Often the kit manufacturers produce wheels for the kits which aren’t as accurate as some modelers demand. The term AMS comes to mind here. Anyway, Res-Im has produced improved resin wheels for the late model 1/144 MiG-21.

Only the main wheels are done for this set, as all of the 1/144 MiGs I found had the gear leg molded onto the nose wheel. This shows up in the photo below which shows the Airfix wheels and the Res-Im wheels, with the nose wheel firmly molded onto the gear leg.

There’s no real assembly to this set, you just paint the wheels. Additionally, there are no instructions, but they aren’t needed. I painted the wheels first before I removed them from the pour sprue. Then I cut the wheels off the sprue, cleaned up the attachment points, and finished painting the tires.

I had to wait a while until the plane was ready to accept the wheels. The Airfix kit uses an axle to attach the wheels to the gear legs. I cut some of the axle down, then drilled a hole in the wheel to give some location and mechanical sturdiness to the assembly.

I used gel-type CA to attach the wheels. It worked well.

After attaching the wheels, I finished by adding the gear doors, the nose probe, and the canopy, and it was finished. The wheels look good, and they’re more detailed than the kit parts.

Overall Evaluation

Recommended. Check your kit to be sure you can use this upgrade, but if it’s going to work, it’ll work well.

Thanks to Res-Im for providing the parts to improve my Airfix kit, and to IPMS USA for letting me review it.