Scale Aircraft Conversions specializes in white metal replacement parts. Its line of replacement landing gear has been expanded to include a set for the Trumpeter Vampire.

The set includes 4 parts, two landing gear struts and a two part nose wheel, finely molded in white metal. These parts are drop-in replacements for the plastic parts.

You can see from the pictures the parts are very cleanly molded and formed. In particular the nose wheel replacement is more accurate is it includes a missing oleo (as you can see from the completed model, which was built using the plastic parts).

Typically I tend to think of replacing a plastic landing gear by a white metal one when the model is large and heavy. For most single engine 1/48 scale models, weight is not an issue. However, if you have added a resin cockpit, resin engine, and other AMS goodies, weight could be an issue. Even in the case of this particular model, I was surprised to find out how much “nose ballast” I had to add to keep it from being a tail-sitter. So it is nice to see the white metal replacement, if you are concern about the long-term effects of the extra weight in the landing gear.

Recommended to modelers of all skill levels.

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