The P-47 just begs for nose art with that big cowling out front. That is exactly what ground crews did and Lifelike has captured in this latest release.

Designed for the Tamiya, Hasegawa, Academy or Revell/Germany kits, the decals and instructions are packaged in a 6”x 9” inch ziplock baggie. The instructions themselves are printed on two A4 pages with full color profiles and plan views. They also include a reference section so if you want to see the real aircraft all you have to do is find the book or website. There is another half sheet that has the stencil locations on one side. I love the instructions. A little history of each aircraft and the markings are included for each aircraft.

Lifelike has no problem letting the modeler know what is known and what is conjecture. That is a very unique approach to decals. I personally like that. They are not afraid to make an educated assumption for the sake of including a peculiarly unique aircraft.

The decals themselves are printed by Cartograf and Microscale. The actual nose art is printed by Cartograf while all the other markings are printed by Microscale. The nose art is a very small sheet with the white backgrounds and nose art. The shading looks very realistic. The other decals are also nicely rendered with perfect register. The stencils are particularly nice. Not sure if you can read them but they look great.

There are three Thunderbolts on this sheet. The first is a D-30 and named “Bloom Tomb”. Now I’m not sure I’d want to fly anything with Tomb in the name but this 406th FG aircraft has the sweeping blue nose with a casket with wings on a white background. It is overall natural metal with the OD ant-glare panel. There are three color bands on the tail of red, blue and yellow indicate the separate squadron colors. The aircraft carries three kill markings in red and a row of German crosses underneath. No one knows for sure what each means, maybe air-to-air kills and air-to-ground kills.

The 56th FG is world renowned as the premier P-47 unit. This Jug is olive drab over neutral grey with the usual white squadron codes. “Tinkle” is below the canopy of this razorback Thunderbolt. The nose has a pale green cowl band was only used from Feb-Mar 1944. This in itself is unique. On top of that there is a cowgirl pinup on a white back ground.

The last aircraft on the sheet is a D-28 from the 9th AF. The forward cowl band, canopy framing and every other cowl flap are painted in a light blue. The other cowl flaps are black making for a very interesting look. There are black bands on the tail planes and various panels. The “Rain Dear” markings are in red below the cockpit. There are three kill markings below the cockpit.

The world class research conducted by Lifelike, excellent printed decals by Cartograf and Microscale along with interesting subjects makes this a great value for the modeler.

Highly Recommended

Thanks to Lifelike Decals for the review copy. You can obtain your copy by contacting them directly at http://www.lifelikedecals.sakura.ne.jp . Let them know you heard about it here.