FLYING LEATHERNECK'S FL 32003
https://www.flyingleathernecksdecals.com
"CHESTY P's IRON FIST"
Here as the site's first decal review is one brought to my attention by one of our viewers, and of which I admit to being unaware until he gave me the heads up. When I saw what it I immediately set out to get hold of one and give it a good look.
Done in 1/32 scale the subjects are strictly related to my beloved Corps, and more importantly, for our purposes, here at least, partially directed toward my equally esteemed Skyraider. The second subject is a jet thingy of some kind...all gray, pointy ended and boring...
...but Devil Dogs and Skyraiders; it just doesn't get any better than that.
(...well... there was Anne Margaret and hot pants...but that's a subject for another day...)
As usual with anything from Flying Leatherneck the quality and packaging of the product is first rate. The decals were printed by Micro Scale and look to be of their usual excellent quality.
On the downside the set was produced in 2013 and is now firmly OOP, though from what I have seen they are not too hard to score on eBay where I got mine. We can only hope Flying Leatherneck sees fit to do another production run of the sheet sometime in the future.
Subject wise we have two Skyraiders and two F-18's; one single seater and one family model.
The Skyraider subjects comprise a very nice AD-6 of VMA-331 circa 1950's and a more problematic Korean War AD-3 of the heavy hitting VMA-121.
The 331 AD-6 would be of an era from about 1955 up to 1959 when the unit transitioned out of the Skyraider and into the A-4 Skyhawk. Very nice in flight photos of the subject, BuNo 139745, can be found several places on line and I can heartily recommend this subject as being entirely accurate for an out of the box 1/32 scale Skyraider build of either of the presently available kits utilizing this sheet.
The 121 Heavy Hauler, though, well, there are some issues.
BuNo 122743 as represented on the sheet was definitely an AD-3, not any iteration of an AD-4, an important distinction as we shall see presently. I am awaiting the airplane's service card to document its history, and depending on what it says I may have to amend the following somewhat; and will do so when able.
Regardless of any forthcoming amendments however, the reality is NO accurate AD-3 can be made from any present 1/32 scale Skyraider as it comes from the box.
Backdating either the ZM or Trumpeter kit is a task requiring serious modification and scratch building to bring about.
The -2's and -3's (which comprised the vast majority of the Marine Skyraider force throughout the Korean War) had a significantly different canopy, windscreen and instrument panel configuration than any of the later variants from the AD-4 onwards. Neither the ZM nor Trumpeter Skyraiders can present anything earlier than an AD-4, and in the case of the ZM boxing nothing earlier than an AD-6.
Moreover when '743 went into the fleet Skyraiders had only two cannon, no armor plate, no internal cowl baffles/flaps, rounded MK-51 stub wing pylons and MK-55 and Mk-9 outer wing pylons only. Except for the early configuration stub wing racks and lack of bolt on armor in the earliest Trumpeter boxing none of these particulars are in any of the kits.
Certainly, the larger and finally definitive AERO-3 outer racks and the other listed improvements found in the kits were often retrofit to surviving airframes, but how long '743 survived is the still an open question I need to research. We'll need the service card to know for sure.
Regardless of retrofit equipment though, she was still a dash -3 and that rounded canopy/windscreen and early cockpit would remain, so without a complete rebuild of the entire cockpit/forward upper fuselage area, both kits remain AD-4B (Trumpeter) and AD-6 (ZM) in any case.
Is this decal sheet superfluous then? Don't you believe it! All the modeler needs to do is "...adapt, improvise, charge the fire and thereby overcome."
VMA-121 did operate a number of AD-4's toward the end of the war. The markings on the sheet would for the most part be entirely applicable and many -4's had all the later equipment mentioned above installed as well.
Just make sure and use the rounded stub wing pylons, all Korean War Skyraiders shipped those. Beyond that, all that would be necessary to make an accurate representation would be to change the data block to indicate an AD-4, and research and then cobble together an appropriate Bureau number from readily available aftermarket sheets.
I really like this sheet; it's definitely worth sourcing and using if you can get hold of one.
Highly recommended.
