Small Scale Military Headquarters

i've been looking at some of the prebuilt 1/144 planes on ebay and was wondering if they have an undercarriage up option? All the pics show them with it down. I think Corgi has both options but i was wondering about the ones from the japanese companies.

Also, who makes the best ones and are there any companies to avoid?

Aferg,
IIRC, the only 1/144 planes to come with the gear up/down option are the Big Bird series (large bombers) by CafeReo. I have Takara, Dragon CanDo, 21st, Corgi and Bandai planes. All are either gear up or gear down, but mostly gear down.
As quality goes, all are about the same, 21st being a little worse, and most of the Takara stuff are actually prepainted kits you have to assemble.

thanks hw.......how difficult would it be to convert the gear down planes to have gear up?

aferguson wrote:thanks hw.......how difficult would it be to convert the gear down planes to have gear up?

The gear is typically one piece so it would be tough to remove the strut from the cover to glue it in the up position. Some planes, including the CafeReo fighters don't come with the gear attached, so if you wanted to, you could just leave them off and put them on the stand without it.
The CafeReo Bombers have both options and they are really pretty nice. They do require some assembly, but the parts aren't near as small as the fighters.

aferg, that is a pretty significant shift from 1/18. Are you feverish or just living large (or small, that is)?

great, thanks for the info HW.

Takara and Cafereo have snapkits that offer both upgear and downgear parts so you should look into that . Theres also complete models that offer that option from F-toys and Takara

I didn't realize that Corgi made 144 at all.

ltcbj wrote:I didn't realize that Corgi made 144 at all.

Corgi makes Lancasters, B-17s, Short Sunderlands and Superfortresses, along with some commercial stuff.

Well thank you for the information. Do they make any 144 fighters?

I have seen (and have) their small (100-160 scales) planes thatb are "fit the box" scale. I did not realize that they made true scale planes below 1/72.

most of the corgi fighters are around 1/100 give or take.
i have yet to find ones that are 1/144.
as a rule stay clear.

there area some box sets which allude to this! the only think to do is to get the seller to give exact measurements (even a difference of 0.5cm is significant margin of error)

The bomber and airliners however are pretty much on the money for 1/144 sizing. AS for the quality they are superior to ATLAS but dont compare with the better detailed IXO/Altaya models (these have a mix of metal fuselage and wings to give that reassuring Corgi "heft")

if you want to take the lancasters as a reference you can see the detail of those. if you have the f-toys lancaster you can draw your own conclusions

http://kampfgruppe144.com/CompareAIR144_00.htm

bd99

The P-38s are ~160. Close enough for toy government work.

There was a small series of fighters made a few years ago in what I believe is pretty close to 1/144 by Johnny Lightning. They had a Corsair, a Mustang, a P40 and a razorback Thunderbolt. They were diecast and came in two or three paint schemes for each model. I have some and think they are nice little planes. Again, though, I am not 100% on the scale having never crunched the numbers. But they look right next to my 21C planes.
They pop up on ebay from time to time and are usually not expensive at all.