1:72 Aero MB-200 Wheels and smooth tires

Wheels of a bomber that grew old before it finished flying

The Aero MB-200 was built under French license, and in 1937 and 1938 more than a hundred of them were completed in Czechoslovakia. The angular all-metal machine with its fixed landing gear and open gun positions was hopelessly behind the times the moment it was delivered, so it served mostly for crew training and liaison work. It is precisely that fixed landing gear, though, that makes it a rewarding model: the wheels are the first thing a viewer notices on the underside.

• A pair of cast wheels with a smooth tire surface
• 1:72 scale; the material sands and drills easily
• The bulge of the tire under the weight of the aircraft is suggested
• An accessory for models of the Czechoslovak license version

The set solves two problems an injection-molded part cannot cope with. The first is the parting line around the middle of the circumference, which has to be laboriously sanded away without taking anything off the shape. The second is the flat contact patch on the ground, which a perfectly round wheel never has. Here both are already solved in the casting; all you do is cut the gate off the inside of the hub and level the face on sandpaper laid on a board.

The tread pattern differs on period photographs according to the tire supplier, which is why the maker of the accessory prepared both versions. The smooth variant matches machines with worn or smoothly molded tires, which was the usual state of affairs on training aircraft.

When gluing, make sure the flat contact patch points squarely at the base, or the finished model will visually hang on one corner and the mistake can no longer be put right. Check it on a flat board before the glue sets, and better still stand the model on glass, where any leaning wheel shows.