“To commemorate the 70th Anniversary of World War II’s D-Day landings, the Royal Air Force (RAF) unveiled a specially-painted Typhoon jet with D-Day invasion stripes at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire. The Typhoon has been adorned with the iconic black and white invasion markings in a tribute to the significant role of the crews of the Hawker Typhoon, its WWII namesake – particularly during D-Day operations. Technicians painted the jet, tail number ZK308, in April 2014, so that it could be ready to take part in UK-wide air shows this summer. The aircraft also completed a dual flypast with a similarly adorned Spitfire, part of the RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.”

Two Bobs has created a superlative decal sheet to commemorate this event in both 1/72nd and 1/32nd scale, all in one package. The decals come on a five inch by eight inch sheet and a smaller two inch sheet, supplemented by a lovely full-color double-sided instruction sheet showing full placement details. It also provides a nice color guide for the painting of the aircraft itself.

The decals themselves are extremely crisp, with clearly printed colors of good opacity and just the very tiniest of displacement on the center of the traditional British roundels. Lettering is clearly readable down to about 0.5 point and the sheet provides full warnings and instructions for both scales of model. They have even managed to capture the elusive pale blue and pink of the toned-down British markings without resorting to dot matrix effects. Full invasion stripes are provided for the 1/72nd version, with instructions for painting these yourself on the larger scale jet if you choose to make this version.

I used a test portion on an old model, and not only did the decals conform well to a textured surface, but they also showed very good opacity. You might need to use a dab of setting solution on some surfaces, but on a kit as smooth-skinned as the Typhoon, I doubt you’ll encounter any difficulties.

As the typical British Typhoon jet is comparatively dull in operational appearance, this sheet should liven things up remarkably with the large dramatic black and white stripes. I can enthusiastically recommend this set to anyone interested in commemorative markings or just want a more colorful rendition for their collection. Just as an added note – a similar sheet for 1/48th scale is also available from Two Bobs Decals as product 48-244.

My thanks to Two Bobs Decals and IPMS/USA for a chance to examine and review this lovely decal sheet.