Scale Aircraft Conversions Landing Gear

[solher1]

Hi all,

Besides providing stronger gear to plastic kits, Do they add extra detail? or What is it the advantage over the kit's plastic landing gear parts?

Thank you in advance.

Juan

[konbini]

Hello

It depends on what the manufacturers want in that particular set. Sometimes they may correct a certain set because it has been incorrect, or minor detailing added. Some are no-nonsense straight replacements. The SAC website has more info: www.scaleaircraftconversions.com

Besides strength, you can also polish up the exposed bits for genuine metal surfaces. The rigidity of the gear is probably the *no pun intended* strongest reason for getting one. When you get up to 1/48 or larger scale, and your wings are all loaded with missiles (even worse if resin), then those spindly legs in styrene might decide to sit down after a period on the shelf. Hope this helps!

David

[Dave Williams]

Like David said, it depends. Some sets have added detail like brake lines, other sets seem to be almost identical to the kit parts in detail. Some may correct problems (the 1/48 TSR2 set is rumored to correct the incorrct splay angle of the kit MLG, for instance).

[Steve McArthur]

I have 3 sets bought for different reasons and detail isn't one of them. The ones I have are no better detailed than the kit parts and if anything the detail is worse because the white metal needs more clean up and just is not a good medium for capturing fine detail. Added strength is the primary reason to use them and there are only a handful of 1/48th scale aircraft where there is an issue with the stock plastic landing gear being strong enough to support the weight of the completed model. I honestly don't get the need for them on the majority of kits where SAC has made replacements sets. Besides strength the only other reason would be where the kit landing gear is FUBAR out of the box, i.e. the Airfix and CA B-57s have Canberra nose struts instead of the proper B-57 strut.

I have a set of the SAC legs and I don't think they are all that great. Definitely not the drop in replacements they are advertised to be. I bought these primarily for the strength of the metal over plastic. If it fixed the splay that was a bonus. As replacement parts, at first glance they appear to be clones of the kit parts that have been copied a few too many times. The plastic kit parts have better fit and sharper defined detail, this wasn't a surprise based on the previous white metal parts I've used. They were honestly much cleaner than most white metal parts I've used and required less cleanup of casting seams. However I'm only planning on replacing 4 parts out of the kit, just the main gear legs (parts 8B/9B) and the main fore-aft beams (parts 12B/13B) to hopefully keep the landing gear from collapsing as I've seen in a couple builds.

The only reasons to use a kit like this are to correct either a gross error in the kit parts or for a sturdier landing gear. I don't expect them to have better detail. I've never seen white metal parts that capture fine detail better than plastic. Lastly, I find plastic easier to work with, so I tend to only use white metal as a last resort. The only other SAC kits I've got are for B-57s where the kits included Canberra struts instead of a proper B-57 landing gear. I haven't yet opened those up to see what problems those might have.

Problem areas:

1) Along the side of the main wheel well bay nearest the centerline the original kit part has a step cut out of the landing gear leg to clear parts 24A and 26A in the wheel well. If you compare the kit part with the SAC part it's obvious what I'm talking about. Without this step the SAC leg will not fit in the bay around the existing parts. This took a few minutes carving with a mototool to fix. This is only a minor annoyance and just the nature of fitting aftermarket parts.

2) The nose gear had a odd fit for the scissor link (33A). I didn't spend much time looking at this to figure out what was wrong, but it didn't appear to be insurmountable. I'm planning to just use the kit parts anyway for the nose strut. I find plastic easier to work with and don't think the SAC parts add anything useful here, but there don't seem to be any major problems to keep someone from using the SAC nose gear if they wanted.

3) The pin at the base of the main gear leg (parts 8B/9B) is way undersized for the hole into the fore and aft beam (parts 12B/13B). The kit parts have a reasonably tight joint here, the SAC parts are way different. The SAC fit is so sloppy it comes real close to making this a fatally flawed set and I hate to say that about any kit. It stalled my build while I consider my options. If anything I expected the fit to be too tight and I would need to remove material to get a proper fit. Starting with a loose fit where I have to add material back to the parts is just a poor design. I have a couple ideas to salvage the SAC parts, but to me it's really unacceptable to have a fit this bad and it made me consider ever buying their parts again. What is especially troubling is that the fit problems are in the joint that is the primary reason I bought this set in the first place.

[richter111]

I bought them for my 1/32 F-105. I have read everywhere that the kits plastic gear are just not up to the task.