Reviewed by Rodger Kelly
 

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To quote the placement sheet "Assigned the call sign "Navy One", this aircraft carried President George W. Bush from NAS North Island, San Diego to USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) sailing off the California Coast on 1 May 2003, making Bush the first sitting US President in history to make an arrested landing on board an aircraft carrier." 

S-3B 'Navy 1' Bureau number 159387 is finished in the S-3 Tactical Paint Scheme (TPS) of overall FS 36373 ghost grey with black cockpit framing/anti-glare panel and the leading edges of the wing, wing pylons and horizontal stabilizers in FS 33481 olive tan.  Prior to its date with history, the aircraft was the Blue Wolves CAG bird and befitting a CAG bird, it is bears full colour markings.  These markings are supplied as decals and include: 

• VS-35 magnificent tail markings featuring a belligerent looking wolf in spurs and gun belt leaning on the NK of the airwing identifier.  This marking is supplied as a two-part decal.  The first decal is in colour and features the wolf himself (in blue and grey funnily enough!) red NK airwing identifiers, brown gun belt, white spurs and bomb yellow and eyes and belt buckle.  The other decal is the 'outline' and it is in black.

• US Abraham Lincoln, NAVY 1, 9387, VS-35, and CVW-14 titles for the rear fuselage/fin in black.

• The 700 modex is in black with red shadow for either side of the nose with smaller abbreviated 00s in black only for the nose gear door and the rudder.  A further set is supplied in white for the tops of the flaps if you choose to modify your kit to drop the flaps.

• The all important George W. Bush Commander-in-Chief titles for the canopy rails (both sides) with the George W. Bush in white to show against the black of the canopy rail.

• Ground crew names in black for either nose gear doors.

• Intake warnings in red.

• A set of slime lights

• A pair of hi-viz national insignia for the fuselage.  These markings are two-part decals as well with red bars being separate.

• A pair of lo-viz national insignia for the wings.

• Grey walk-way markings for the top of the fuselage and the horizontal stabilizers.

• Comprehensive stencil data is also provided and it includes the vast majority of the visible stuff.  Included in this are the warning data, ejection seat and rescue data, Bureau number block and warning outlines for the APU exhaust.

• The warning stripes for the tail hook are also included.  These markings are three different decals to ease placement.

The decals have been printed by Microscale and as you would expect, everything is in perfect register with an absolute minimum of carrier film. 

The placement guide is where this sheet stands out!  It is A-4 in size, shows left and right side colour profiles and top view of the wings (with lowered flaps).  As well as that it features eight colour photographs of the aircraft - four recording the events of the history making day, and a further four in a mini walk-around showing the markings.   

The decals and placement guide come packed in a clear plastic zip-loc bag. 

The recommended kit is the ESCI/AMT/Italeri one.  'Navy 1' was carrying a buddy refuelling pod on the day so try and get the AMT ES-3A kit as it has this refuelling pack.  Be aware that you will need to modify the kit to bring it up to –B standards.  This is not an onerous conversion and a guide can be found on Scot Van Aiken’s Modelling Madness website at http://m2reviews.cnsi.net/scotts/features/s3b/s3bdiff.htm .  A further conversion guide by Lieutenant Commander Bill Suggs is right here on Hyperscale at http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/updatingyourvikingbs_1.htm .  A great place to find the chaff/flare dispensers you need is in all of the Hasegawa 1/48 scale A-4 Skyhawk kits.  There are two in each kit (part No A5). 

If you want some reference pics on Navy 1 and want to learn some more about the event follow the link to the Navy News site. http://www.news.navy.mil/search/photolist.asp

It has a good selection of pics some of which appear on the placement guide. 

An excellent sheet from CAM Decals. 

Recommended.

Thanks to Brookhurst Hobbies for the review sample.

CAM Decals are available online from their website at http://www.camdecals.com and from Brookhurst Hobbies

CAM Decals 59 page 2002 color catalog of decals and resin parts is also
now available through the CAM Decals website

Review Copyright © 2003 by Rodger Kelly
This Page Created on 15 September, 2003
Last updated 15 September, 2003

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