Scale Aircraft Conversions (or SAC, for short) is a well-known manufacturer who has been producing white metal landing gear for kits between 1:18 and 1:144 scales since 1990.  These are largely based on the kit parts but provide gear that are stronger, more rugged, and potentially longer lasting than plastic parts.  Here, we take a look at their January and February 2020 new releases.
 
JANUARY 2020

SAC # 32149 F-104 Starfighter Landing Gear provides nine parts to replace the kit gear and tail skid in the 1:32 scale Italeri kit of the classic Century Series fighter.

SAC # 48376 A/B-26B Invader Landing Gear contains five white metal parts for the recently released, new tool 1:48 ICM kit (and incidentally, while I have not reviewed that kit at Detail & Scale, I am a BIG fan of ICM’s work with their Invader).

SAC # 48377 B-17G Flying Fortress Landing Gear contains 10 white metal landing gear parts (main gear and tail wheel) for the 1:48 scale HK Models B-17G Early Production kit that was released in 2019.  

FEBRUARY 2020

 SAC # 32150 Hs 129B-2/RIII Landing Gear provides 16 parts to replace the kit gear and tail wheel assembly in the 1:32 scale Zoukei-mura kit of the infamous Luftwaffe heavy ground attack platform.  

SAC # 32151 Mirage 2000 Landing Gear contains nine white metal parts for the recently released, new tool 1:32 Kitty Hawk kit.

SAC # 72171 Fokker D.VII Landing Gear includes two sets of landing gear spanning 14 white metal parts for the 1:72 scale Eduard kit of the WWI German monoplane.  

SAC # 14433 Fokker 100 Landing Gear contains two sets of landing gear for a much later generation Fokker product providing six white metal parts for the 1:144 scale Revell kit of the medium-jet het airplane.

When working with SAC landing gear, I usually like to gently polish them with a buffing wheel or buffing pad in my Dremel set at a very low RPM.  For me, that provides the means for any necessary clean-up and a great, super-smooth surface to apply primer and then paint.  Some scale modelers really enjoy using these white metal landing gear parts.  They are stronger than polystyrene (something to consider especially for larger-scale kits) and thus are better at long-term load-bearing.  These parts are also just a little malleable allowing for minor gear alignment or dihedral tweaking.  And remember, superglue is needed to bond metal to plastic.  Thicker, gap-filling CA glues are best for this kind of work.  Lastly, SAC gear contains no lead and is safe to work with.

We extend our sincere thanks to Ross McMillan at Scale Aircraft Conversions for the review sample.  You can visit them on the web at https://www.scaleaircraftconversions.com where you can browse all their products, order directly from SAC, or drop them a line as needed.