Reviewed by Rodger Kelly
 

Yellow Wings 1/48 scale US National Insignia decals are available online from Squadron

48-018 is one of the three new sheets from the folks at Yellow-Wings Decals.  This time, rather than markings for a specific type of aircraft the sheet contains US national insignia used by aircraft of the United States Military Forces from 1919 to 1942. 

As the title says, this is a Part 2 sheet.  The Part 1 sheet, 48-005 also carried national insignia but of different and much larger sizes. 

This sheet contains national insignia in four different sizes:

• 24" – 32 individual decals.
• 36" – 15 individual decals.
• 45" – 4 individual decals.
• 48" – 4 individual decals.

It must be Yellow-Wings Decals company policy to provide a complete package rather than just a decal sheet as the support material that accompanies their sheets is certainly comprehensive.  This sheet is no exception and you are provided with two A-4 sized sheets. 

These sheets contain:

• A brief history of the US National Insignia between 1919 and 1942
• A history of the Neutrality Patrol during its brief existence between 1939 and 1941.
• Neutrality Patrol Star (US National Insignia used during the period) - Sizes and Location.   Modellers stuff here as it provides you with the size used and placement of the national insignia for eight different aircraft used by the US Navy and USMC during this period.  The bottom of this page carries six rather poor black and white left hand side profile illustrations of period US Navy aircraft.
• The other page carries two further and larger profiles, one of a TBD-1 and the other a SB2U-1 Vindicator.  I say poor illustrations as the reproduction is pretty pedestrian when compared with the quality and presentation of the rest of this product.  However, this is a personal opinion and these illustrations in no way affect the quality of the decals which is what you are really buying the sheet for!

The decals themselves really are first class.  They have been printed by Microscale and are a real joy to behold.  They are beautifully thin, in perfect register and have an absolute minimum of film surrounding each of the subjects – you really could not ask for better as far as I am concerned!  

The information pages, the decal sheet and a stiff cardboard header come packed in a clear plastic zip-loc bag. 

Another nice effort from Yellow-Wings Decals.  It provides excellent quality decals as well as a thumbnail history of the US National Insignia and the short-lived Neutrality Patrol. 

Recommended.

Thanks to Yellow Wings Decals for the review samples.

Review Copyright © 2005 by Rodger Kelly
This Page Created on 14 March, 2005
Last updated 14 March, 2005

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