When something in 1/144 scale comes up as available for review, I will quite often jump on it. There isn’t NEARLY as much in 1/144 as in 1/72 or 1/48, so I’m quite often looking at a list with nothing for me. When I saw the AOA Decals AC-119 decals in 1/144, I grabbed it. And I’m glad I did.

The Roden AC-119K Stinger is a pretty good kit, but I really wish the Eastern Europeans would start putting locating rings and tabs on their parts. A simple butt joint doesn’t always hold up well to handling. In this case, if you look at my Stinger, you’ll notice that the tail booms don’t line up very well with the fuselage. That’s because I managed to rip these parts off the kit THREE times.

So I’m very happy to review AOA’s decals for the AC-119.

You get a wonderful set of choices for the USAF AC-119K Stingers from the 18th SOS, Vietnam 1969-1970. Six marvelous nose art choices, with all the tail numbers, nose gear door numbers and all of those little markings you don’t really see on a real airplane when you can’t get closer than 50 feet from it. AOA also gives you info for correcting some differences between the kit and the actual aircraft, as each of the six they have markings for also were slightly different in some details.

There are also markings for 6 AC-119Gs of the 71st SOS and 17th SOS. Since these planes were given to the South Vietnamese Air Force, there are SVNAF markings included. But wait, there’s more. The instructions also tell you how to convert the K model kit to a G, so you can use these decals.

The instructions also include a very good painting guide, the camouflage matches my copy of TO 1-1-4.

The decals themselves are just super. They’re printed by Cartograf, and these decals are exactly the super quality we’ve come to expect from them. The decals come off the paper almost immediately, an indicator of good quality. They can be moved around without tearing or folding, as long as the surface under them is wet. Once I had the decal where I wanted it, I used a tissue to wick away the extra moisture. And then the decal was pretty much permanent

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED These decals are super to apply, and there are just so many interesting and different markings on this sheet that I really had a difficult time picking the one I wanted.

Many thanks to AOA Decals for providing this great product. Also thanks to IPMS USA for allowing me to use these decals to improve my AC-119.