Ross, the proprietor of SAC, has been a prolific supporter of IPMS/USA from the inception of his company; not only are his products excellent, but he definitely has provided us with some gems, and we appreciate it!

Released in its standard bubble pack with card backing, (with the shield of the only true Air Force Command (SAC) for backdrop (ha), this set is a simple but important addition to anyone building Roden’s new T-28 kit. I was surprised to see my name written on the header card… until I realized it stood for “Roden”, not “Rod”! Alzheimers is real…

The kit nose gear in plastic is to scale, which means if you put the required nose weight in to keep the nose on the ground, it will (over time) bend and eventually break off.

Enter SAC. I am unaware of what type of metal is used, but whatever it is provides robust support for the fine details and scale appearance of items such as the Trojan’s nose gear. Lead is not noted on the package (as would be required by law if it was in the alloy) so we don’t have to worry about heavy metal poisoning.

This set is a simple “replace the kit item” exercise. Included are main gear, nose gear, main gear door standoff hinges, and the shimmy damper assembly for the nose gear. Superglue or epoxy is required…I tend to use thick, gap-filling superglue on these type of additions, as the thin stuff doesn’t work so well and frequently causes internal plastic stresses to manifest themselves in the form of catastrophic cracks.

Look at the pictures and decide for yourself; in the comparison pictures, the gray plastic items are on the left. The shimmy damper is a bit more finessed on the SAC item, which is an improvement. Although you can paint metal without it, a shot of metal primer after installation is recommended to help your paint stay on over the years.

End of story: Highly recommended, score 10 of 10 for SAC productions! And thanks again, Ross… keep it up! Thanks to IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review the set.