The Centennial celebration of Naval Aviation has brought about some really colorful modern aircraft, emanating their predecessors from the yellow wing days, and, in particular, the distinctive unit markings of World War Two aircraft. They have made for some truly one-of-a-kind aircraft, and Bob Sanchez has managed to capture them for we enthusiasts. Even if you don’t have the five separate decal sheets that go along with this CD, you will always have a superb reference on hand for F/A-18, and EA-6’s. On the CD label it says there are over 800 photos. I didn’t add up that many, but who cares? These are, however some of the crispest, clear photos that I have ever seen. They are also taken from some places that most of us will never be able to go and without thousands of people around. Now if we only had some cockpit shots, too.

The first selection on the CD shows the instructions sheets for all five decal sheets. That’s a pretty good marketing tool, in itself. Next are separate libraries for each of the aircraft shown on the sheets. That is, all but that pesky A-4C that is on sheet 48-231. Somehow it managed to show up on the decal sheet with no references to accompany it. There is, however, one that snuck in, and that’s F/A-18F 165677 of VFA-122 which is painted in the same camouflage pattern as the Navy’s digital blue uniform. Now that’s a modeler’s nightmare. Your eyes hurt just from looking at the pictures.

You’ll definitely want to spend some time in studying these pictures, because there are some really good ones of pylons, wing folds, flaps, slats, etc. And, with the exception of two of the aircraft, they are all immaculate. So, if you are going to use any of the five decal sheets, you need to look at the CD to see if you do any weathering, and just how much is too much.

My thanks go out to Bob Sanchez and to IPMS/USA for the review sample.