Lifelike Decals continues to produce some of the finest, most colorful decals out there. In this release they have turned their attention to the Eduard Albatros. There are four colorful aircraft depicted.

There are two decal sheets with this release. One decal sheet is printed by Microscale, so if you use their decal products you should have no problem. All the decals are printed in register with good color opacity. The other, slightly smaller sheet is printed in Japan and contains the gorgeous markings for the aircraft, such as the coat of arms.

The instructions are printed on two single-sided A4 sheets in full color. The one thing I like is that Lifelike isn’t afraid to offer an educated guess when some marking is in question. They let you know what is speculative and how they came to their conclusions, a very professional and non-pompous way to do business.

The Panther. Do I really need to say more about the history of this tank? If you do desire more information, I suggest you go to Wikipedia, Google, Dog Pile, or Bing and research it. You will find more than you can digest! Come on…it’s a Panther!!!

On to the kit. The box says it is a Panther Ausf. D early production, kit number 7494. The kit has over 80 parts on 4 sprues and DS tracks. Five different painting and decal choices are available to mix the color pallet up for everybody’s taste. The directions are in color (and on very nice paper) and have 8 steps for assembling the model, starting with the running gear.

A fast way to upgrade any kit is to replace the wheels with some higher quality resin ones. Ultracast has long been a standard for outstanding resin aircraft accessories and updates, with their P-51 items leading the pack. These wheels are for any P-51 kit where the modeler desires a block tread, which is a little different than the standard kit-supplied diamond tread.

In The Package

The wheels come on two separate pour stubs, sealed in a Ziploc bag on a card hanger. The parts are completely free of any defect or casting flaw, and the tread pattern is very nicely defined but not overdone. The casting block attaches to the tire where there would be a slight flattening from the weight of the aircraft, but there is no “flat tire bulge.”