1:32 MOSQUITO IV

A wooden bomber without a single machine gun

The Mosquito in its IV version wagered on not needing defense, because nothing could catch it. A fuselage and wing of plywood and balsa, two Merlin engines and an empty bomb bay instead of gun turrets. In September 1942 its crews flew over Oslo straight at the Gestapo building, and in January 1943 it appeared over Berlin in broad daylight in the middle of a speech. The glazed nose for the navigator and bomb aimer is a quite different task in terms of shape from a fighter canopy.

Where a decal masks better

This set carries only one glazing mask, and that for the outer face. Inside the nose there is an intricate structure that film would not cover accurately anyway, and in practice almost nobody will see it there. It equally holds that small inscriptions, warning triangles and numbers cannot be done with a mask: a marking smaller than a few millimeters is cut imprecisely and the paint bleeds under it. There a decal wins outright, and the set allows for that.

The division of labor in the box

• one glazing mask for the outer face
• four national insignia masks for the large roundels
• decals for the fine markings, where film would fail

The boundary between the two is simple: what is large, single-colored and lies on a smooth surface belongs under a mask. What is small, multi-colored or contains text belongs to a decal. Everyone shifts that boundary by their own experience, but the set offers it ready-made. Anyone who wants to test the boundary should try the smallest roundel dry first: if the edge of the film lifts anywhere after being pressed down, the insignia is already too small for a mask and a decal will serve better. The model itself is not in the box.