Background

The Sukhoi Su-24 “Fencer” has been in service with the Russian air forces for over 40 years. It is a rugged, variable wing sweep bomber that is easy to fly and well-liked by the two-man crew. Several kits have been produced of this aircraft and recently, the Advanced Modeling company has released some decal sets that depict the Fencer in modern markings.

This sheet, “Chelyabinsk Eagles Pt. 1”, along with the Pt. 2 sheet, represents various Su-24 aircraft that are based at the Shagol Air Base, near the city of Chelyabinsk near the border with Kazakhstan. When the regiment was first deployed to Chelyabinsk in September of 2010, the aircraft were painted in a variety of schemes and needed repainting. Before re-paint, at least two of the aircraft featured large eagles on the right side of the nose. It was decided to keep these eagle emblems during the repaint. That is the reason behind the name of this sheet – Chelyabinsk Eagles.

Lifelike Decals from Japan has issued a 1/32^nd scale set titled “Part 3- Big Beautiful Doll Special” which covers six versions of Col. John Landers famous P-51D. The set actually starts with markings when he was a major and then Lt. Colonel and then finished with Colonel so it has markings showing the progression of his career.

A quick bit of history, Col. Landers had 14.5 kills making him almost a triple ace, starting with P-40’s then P-38’s and lastly the P-51. This set only covers the P-51’s and there are two specific planes with multiple markings. The markings in the set cover the following aircraft:

LPS Hobby is a Brazilian designer of waterslide decals for the plastic scale modeling hobby. Based on an internet search, their subjects include a variety of military aircraft from World War II and many small-scale airliners. 1/144 and 1/72 scales are well represented.

This particular sheet is designed for the Tamiya 1/72 P-47D model, and contains markings for three subjects and a complete set of maintenance stencils. The aircraft options on this decal sheet are “Zombie”, a P-4D-20-RE, s/n 42-76594, flown by Capt. Ronald J. Upp, 361st FS, 356th FG, Martlesham, England, November, 1944; “Turtle”, a P-47D-22-RE, s/n 42-26250 flown by Lt. Charles D. Dooney, 509thFS, 405th FG, St. Dizier, France, Winter, 1944; and P-47D-22-RE, s/n 42-26261, flown by Lt. Walter A Gabrowski, 511th FS, 405th FG, Zima, Italy, 1944/45.

LPS Hobby’s decals are printed by Microscale in perfect register. They will make for an interesting, not often seen aircraft subject on contest tables.

Fundekals is a newer company but the people behind them have been around the modeling scene for years. And they have a new business model. They are aware of the cost of decals and the current trend to have dozens of markings. They have decided on (mostly) one set of markings per sheet and a one-time printing and generally will not include things like national markings. And they do not include the instructions sheets which are downloadable from their web site in PDF form. And, that’s a good thing which you will see in a minute.

This sheet actually covers five sets of markings. Due to the size of the sheet, it makes sense to include five markings especially with no national markings on the sheet, just the markings specific to that plane. The five planes covered are:

If you really, I mean really like research, then you know the passion that comes with it. Well so does Fündekals. Their latest release is on the F4U Corsair. This is their second Corsair sheet and it is full of goodies too.

First off, did I miss something? I only got decals. There are no instructions with this sheet. No, that is the norm for Fündekals. To save printing costs, and subsequent costs to you, you can download the instruction booklet online. You can save it and/or print it. The amount of research into the booklet is worth the price of admission.

The decals themselves are printed by B.O.A. so you know they are world class. They are thin, opaque and in register. The sheets are mostly white markings but there are some colorful personal emblems included for the aircraft. The second sheet is the geometric markings for one of the subject aircraft.