About the Company

DXM Decals, which stands for Double Excellent Models, was started by a group of modelers in Taipei, Taiwan. The group started manufacturing decals in 2010. They cover a broad range of aircraft, including an extensive list of schemes from Japanese air combat meets.

What’s on the Sheet?

This sheet covers the 30th anniversary of the 21st Training Fighter Squadron and another F-2B specially marked to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Matsushima Airbase located in Matsushima, Japan. The aircraft covered are:

• F-2B Viper Zero, 21st Training Squadron, Matsushima Airbase.
• F-2B Viper Zero, 21st Training Squadron, Matsushima Airbase.

The decals are extremely vivid with crisp colors and dark blacks. I could see very little carrier film, if not none. The decals are printed by Cartograf on a single large sheet.

The North American T-6 Texan was the premier advanced trainer through World War II and later. It was also used as a FAC (Forward Air Control) aircraft in Korea and Vietnam. The AT-6 was also known as the SNJ by the US Navy and the Harvard by the RAF. 61 countries have used some variant of the Texan. If you can’t find markings that interest you, just keep looking.

My personal attachment to the T-6 comes from my friend Tom Kelly, who gave me a ride in his T-6G. We went to Oshkosh for the Air Rendezvouz in 1986. You get a really respectful greeting when you arrive in a warbird, even if you’re only in the back seat.

Britain had the V Bombers, Valiant, Victor and Vulcan, from the 1950s through the 1980s. They were large bombers designed to carry the large nuclear weapons of the 50s, and they served the RAF well, with the Victor and Vulcan serving as aerial tankers and the last Vulcan tanker retiring in 1984.

This model is of the Victor B.2 bomber version of the aircraft. The bomber was never used in combat; the Valiant bombed Suez in 1956 and the Vulcan bombed the Falklands in 1982. Victor tankers participated in the “Black Buck” missions in the Falklands, with 11 Victor K.2s needed to get one Vulcan to the target, Ascension Island, and return, a round trip of 6,800 miles.

The Victors were designed to carry a stand-off nuclear missile called Blue Steel. This was to be replaced by the US designed Skybolt missile, but that program was cancelled.

The Product

This set comes on a single photo-etch fret and offers several worthwhile enhancements. The list of items include: brake lines, a complete set of landing gear doors, radiator faces, radiator exit door, engine shutters, cowling flaps, canopy lever, canopy mirror, ring & bead gun sight, throttle, several cockpit levers and trim wheels. A great feature about this brass fret is the delicate attach points. The instructions are clearly printed with Eduard’s easy to understand pictorials.

Ultracast from Canada has released several detail sets for the Eduard Spitfire MkIX in 1/48 scale.

This particular set is a drop-in replacement for the Spitfire tubular exhaust. It has been casted in a pale cream-colored resin with a delicate pour stub that will make removal an easy task.

As you can see, the surface is very smooth and the detail is delicate with thin, hollow exhausts. While the plastic parts are also hollow, this resin set allows for insertion after painting.

To use the resin exhausts, you only need to add the provided exhaust supports to the model’s nose in the step where you would add the original kit exhaust pieces. The rest of the assembly can continue as usual, and once painting and finishing is complete, you simply add the resin exhaust by gluing it to the exhaust support added during construction.

It is a simple detail that makes painting and masking a much easier task, and it is highly recommended.