I had been kicking around the idea of purchasing some sets of white metal landing gear from Scale Aircraft Conversions for a while to go with some of the kits that I have in my stash. The idea of being able to put a heavier model on sturdy gear is very appealing to me. So when the opportunity presented itself, I figured that I would give it a shot.

What you get with the replacement landing gear is one full set of main landing gear (right and left) and a tail wheel produced in white metal.

Upon receiving the landing gear, I pulled my kit from the stash so I could do a comparison. Upon comparing the kit parts to the aftermarket parts, one of the first things I noticed was the detail was softer on the aftermarket. Then I put the pieces together to compare how the kit and aftermarket looked together. I found that the aftermarket was shorter than the kit part. I put a ruler to it to see and, sure enough, it was almost 1/16” shorter than the kit part. Not a huge difference, but noticeable.

Then I proceeded to assemble the main landing gear, one of the kit-supplied parts and one of the Scale Aircraft Conversion parts. Fit into the kit wheel well of the aftermarket pieces was good. One noticeable issue was that the retracting linkage was not long enough to contact the main landing gear. To make it right you would have to add something to lengthen the retracting linkage arms to make contact.

With some time and work involved with the Scale Aircraft Conversion parts, you could improve some of the details. Even though I was a little disappointed with the kit, I would still look at trying out some of the offerings from Scale Aircraft Conversions.

I would like to thank IPMS/USA and Scale Aircraft Conversions for the opportunity to review this kit.