Lifelike Decals has long been known for their high quality, limited edition decal releases. The decals come in the customary clear plastic zip bag, and inside you will find two full color, single sided pages with color callouts, decal placement guides, references, and a ton of historical information on each aircraft covered. Not to mention the decals themselves. This release contains one standard size decal sheet with markings for four WWII Imperial Japanese Army Ki-44 Shoki “Tojo” fighters. Decals are printed by Cartograf of Italy, and are clear and in perfect register.

**Just a note to the buyer – when you’re doing a search to purchase these, you may see some decals labeled for the “Japanese Edition” and some for the “English Edition”. The difference here is the language on the instructions. If you don’t read Japanese and are interested in getting the wealth of historical data written about each aircraft – be sure to look for the English one!

This long-awaited title is #63 in the Osprey Combat Aircraft series and is certainly one to add to your collection. This softbound book contains 96 pages which are packed with English text, photos, and color illustrations which tell the history of the Aichi Type 99 “Val” from the early stages of WWII through 1942.

The Aichi Type 99 D3A Carrier Bomber was code named “Val” by the Allies. It was the most successful dive-bomber that the Japanese used during the war and it served in all areas of the Pacific until the end of the war. The Val can claim more Allied shipping tonnage sunk than any other Axis aircraft of the war.

This book contains detailed accounts which are all in English. All too often, we have books written in Japanese, which are not available in English for Western readers. Not so here!

The book’s chapters are broken down as:

Aires has been on the scene for some time now, producing some amazing details in resin and photo etch metal. Among aftermarket aficionados, Aires is the top of the pack for the level of detail and quality of casting. This set for the Monogram Promodeler or Accurate Miniatures 1/48 SB2C Helldiver is no exception.

In the Box

The details for this set come in a small bag stapled to the instructions and card backing. Parts are very finely cast and consist of two resin main gear wells and a smaller tree of parts for gun barrels and actuation rods. The large, one-piece landing gear wells are perfectly cast, and feature more refined detail than what comes in the kit. Instructions are clear and easy to follow.

Installation

To start, you will need the following tools:

Tamiya’s new 1/32nd scale P-51 has created a surge of new decals for that subject, and Lifelike Decals have done their part, as well. This sheet provides markings for four colorful Mustangs, three from the European Theater and one from the Pacific Theater:

This is my fourth egg plane. The first was an F-4 Phantom, probably 20 years ago. Since then I’ve done two F-16s, and now the F-22. The original Phantom was very much an egg with wings and stabilizers added. This “aircraft” looks pretty un-egglike. Either that or it’s a very weird chicken.

The kit is pretty simple and goes together quite nicely. The fuselage is two pieces, separated top and bottom. The vertical stabilizers are separate parts, the landing gear is 7 parts, including the doors, and the canopy finishes the parts inventory.

I put the fuselage halves together without glue. They include the wings and horizontal stabs. Then I painted the whole thing. I used Neutral Gray for the main color, with Euro 1 Gray for the dark patches and Dark Ghost Gray for the leading and trailing edges. This looks very tactical.