The F-15 sits up high on fragile bird like landing gear and let’s face it the plastic kit parts are pretty flimsy. This is where white metal landing gear come in.

Packaged on a cardboard backing with a plastic enclosure glued on the front, the parts are loose inside the packaging. There are three white metal parts, one for each landing gear. The three landing gear parts are made of white metal that looks blemish free, however, my example had the large support strut slightly bent. Nothing drastic or dramatic, it was easy enough to straighten out. I can’t find any seam lines on any of the pieces. All the pieces had one little attachment point that will need to be removed. Very small and easy enough to do with hobby knife and sandpaper.

The SAC metal landing gear is a stronger copy of the kit gear. An added bonus is that the landing gear are already partial built compared to the kit gear. The three gear struts are direct replacement gear for the kit ones.

History

The M1 Abrams tank is one of the world’s best know, easily recognized and most lethal main battle tanks, and has seen combat throughout both the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. One of the latest versions is the M1A2 SEP V2. ‘SEP V2’ stands for System Enhanced Program and ‘V2’ denotes Version 2.

There are numerous URLs & sites dedicated to both the SEP V2, a great deal of public information and photographs available to assist the scale modeler in construction and finishing of this tank.

Kit

This is a great kit, providing not only the basis for the updated versions of the Abrams, of which over 5100 examples have been built since the M1’s were first produced in 1978.

Not to be outdone by either their earlier issues of the M1 kits nor those of their competitors, Dragon has raised the bar even further with this M1A2 SEP V2. What’s different in this kit?

My abbreviated list includes these new goodies:

A perfect addition to your diorama or display base is this Brengun wooden barrels and buckets set. Brengun provides three resin wooden buckets, three large wooden barrels and three small wooden barrels. The package is non re-sealable packaging so once the parts are out of the bag, don’t lose them – escpecially the smaller barrels. There are no instructions provided for color, but a quick internet search will provide a wide spectrum of painting options.

Brengun has molded the parts in light grey resin with no bubbles that I was able to find. There are no mold seams to sand off and the resin plug is easily removed from the bottom with a razor saw.

The landing lights under the wings on the MiG-21 is quite a visible feature. The Eduard kit has you just add a plastic piece over the area. It may be adequate for some but for others it will just beckon those to detail it. Enter the Quickboost set.

Two resin blocks are included. One is crystal clear with outer part of the light and then the other part is a very tiny filament part. It is as realistic as the real thing. The other resin block is molded in light grey resin. This is the housing for the light. Just paint this part gloss silver, add the filament and you will have a perfectly realistic landing light housing.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can get yours directly from Aires at www.aires.com or at your local hobby shop or online retailer.

The MiG-19PM is the missile version of the short lived MiG-19 family. The PM had four pylons which allowed the aircraft to fire beam riding AA-1 missiles.

This set is packaged in a Ziploc bag. There are five parts in the package. The large pitot tube is beautifully rendered out of turned aluminum. There are four turned brass missile rails that are designed to fit on the front of the missile pylons. These will hang out the end of the pylons so you know they will break off during handling, unless you replace them with these metal extensions.

So you have an easy to install upgrade for a reasonable price. This simple and effective upgrade offers strength and perfectly round cross section with minimal work. What more can you ask for? The set is indicative of the quality that I’ve come to expect from Master. Another winning product.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Master and IPMS/USA for the review copy.