Reviewed by Rodger Kelly 

Yellow Wings Decals are available online from Squadron

A companion sheet to the previous Yellow Wings releases, 48-011 pre-WWII 1940-41 United States Marine Corps SBD-1 Douglas Dauntless, and 48-012 pre-WWII 1940-41 United States Navy SBD-2 Douglas Dauntless, this sheet provides further "missing" pieces to enable you to replicate a United States Navy or United States Marine Corps SDB in the colourful pre-WWII yellow wings finish.

The sheets provides you with wing chevrons and Section Leader fuselage bands fuselage bands in insignia red (1st Section aircraft), white (2nd Section aircraft), true blue (3rd Section aircraft), black (4th Section aircraft), willow green (5th Section aircraft), and lemon yellow (6th Section aircraft), wing walks, rudder stripes for the two United States Marine Corps machines, propeller tip markings (love these as it saves you from a lot of fiddly masking!), LSO stripes, United States Marine Corps insignia, as well as squadron insignia for VS-2 and VB-2.

The two decal sheets are accompanied by the comprehensive support material we are used to seeing from Yellow Wings Decals. You get three A-4 sized pages that are printed on both sides. One sheet features black and white three-view drawings of two United States Navy machines on the front featuring aircraft from the USS Lexington (VB-2 and VS-2) and two United Sates Marine Corps machines on the back VMB-1 at Quantico and VMB-2 at San Diego. The second sheet provides you with comprehensive printed instructions on how to apply and trim the decals, advice on how the one-to-one-scale machines were painted, and model paint matches to official United Sates Navy and United Sates Marine Corps colours. The final sheet explains the pre-WWII system of markings and the colours applied to the aircraft to identify the squadron and the ship on which it was based as well as the an explanation of the identification letters and numbers applied to the fuselage.

The decals themselves have been printed by Microscale. Enough said!

The two decal sheets and accompanying information sheets are packed into a clear plastic zip-loc bag along with a stiff cardboard header to keep the decal sheets from bending and creasing.

The recommended kit is the Accurate Miniatures one (if you have ever seen one of these finished in this style of markings you can not fail to be impressed!)

Make no mistake, the machines of this era were colourful and the people at Yellow Wings Decals have provided enough markings in this package to replicate any of the SBDs operated by the United States Navy and United Sates Marine Corps, but be aware that you will need to purchase two more sheets to furnish the fuselage codes as well as the national insignia to finish the project.

Recommended.
 

Thanks to Yellow Wings Decals for the review sample.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Review Copyright © 2006 by Rodger Kelly
This Page Created on 28 July, 2006
Last updated 28 July, 2006

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