Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC) is a Texas based company that has been marketing resin and white metal parts for scale model aircraft for well over 20 years. In perusing their website, it’s hard to find an aircraft kit for which they don’t make a metal landing gear set. There are currently about 228 available sets in the 1/48 scale jets list alone. I’ve used them at least a half-dozen times in the past and they have proven to be of high quality with excellent fit.
This review if for one of their more recent issues, the gear set for the Revell 1/48 SR-71. It’s one of Revell’s Level 5 kits with 204 parts and a 40-page instruction booklet, issued in 2021 and 2022 boxings. The gear are made of white metal, which is typical for SAC. These replacement gear sets offer a number of advantages over plastic in that they are stronger, won’t warp over time, and can better withstand the weight of heavy models, particularly those requiring additional nose weight to prevent the model from being a tail sitter, although that isn’t necessary with the SR-71. The flexibility of metal landing gear affords an additional bonus. It allows the modeler to make a slight adjustment to align the gear or even equalize the level of the wingtips after construction should that be necessary. You can’t do that with plastic.
Being metal, the gear need to be attached with CA glue. It is best to use the type of CA that is slower drying, like a gap filler, so that some movement can be made after placement. And if they are to be painted, it is best to use a metal primer.
The landing gear for the SR-71 is more complex than those on most aircraft and this is reflected in this SAC set. (See photos). The finer pieces such as the gear door actuators that are included are provided in thick protective frames and must be carefully removed from them to avoid damage. To assist in identification, the frame for Parts 100 and 101 and Part 74 are numbered. Other parts like the struts are readily identifiable.
Note the main gear struts in this SAC set are furnished whole, which negates the chore of gluing together the plastic Revell struts in the kit that are supplied in halves. This further assures the SAC struts to be more robust than those in the kit.
I can highly recommend this product. It reflects the quality and accuracy of the SAC gear sets I’ve successfully used in past aircraft builds.
Thanks to Scale Aircraft Conversions for providing this product for review and IPMS/USA for allowing me to review it.
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