Lifelike Decals from Japan has released its 7th installment in a series of P-47s. The A/C you get are

• P-47D-11RE, 42-75429, “Eileen” Razorback, on Olive Drab, Neutral gray, with D-Day bands in the lower fuselage and translucent bands on the lower wings.
• P-47D-28RA, 42-28878, “Eileen” Bubbletop, on RAF Dark Green and either RAF Sky or RAF Sky Gray for lower surfaces. D-Day bands on the lower fuselage and black rudder.
• P-47D-30-RA, 44-33219, “Always Marge” on a natural metal finish with Olive Drab antiglare panel extending behind the canopy. Cowl flaps and rudder trim tab in white/blue squadron colors were typical of occupation forces after VE-Day in Germany.

You are provided with squadron codes and fuselage art for all three A/C. However you only have enough nose checkers and stencils for a single A/C. However this is not a big problem as you can use the stencils from the decal sheet in the original boxing and/or the nose-checkers from the Tamiya P-47 Bubbletop boxing. Hence with a bit of creativity you can actually model all 3 airplanes in this sheet.

Decals have been printed by Microscale and Cartograf (for the Eileen fuselage art). Both decal printers have a well-earned reputation for thin decals and in-register sheets. These are no exception. Decals are glossy; they look thin and likely will adhere well to a gloss surface.

The only word of caution might be to not overlay the national markings directly on top of the black/white bands, as most decals –even the better ones- are not opaque enough to go over D-Day bands. Just mask the national marking area before painting the D-Day bands to provide a uniform background color for the decal to go over (instead of over black/white bands).

This sheet is a welcome addition to the resources for a P-47 fan (like me).

Recommended.

I would like to thank Lifelike Decals and IPMS/USA for the review sample.