1:48 Eurofighter Typhoon 60 Years Luftwaffe TLG 74

An anniversary scheme for the Luftwaffe's sixtieth

Neuburg an der Donau is home to tactical wing TLG 74, a unit that holds quick reaction alert over southern Germany and scrambles fighters to unidentified aircraft as part of air policing. For the sixtieth anniversary of the re-establishment of the Luftwaffe, a Eurofighter took off from there in a special finish.

The postwar Luftwaffe came into being in the mid-1950s and over six decades traveled the road from American and Canadian deliveries to a joint European program. The Eurofighter is the symbol of that last stage, so the choice of the aircraft to carry the anniversary graphics made sense.

The character of the finish

Schemes of this kind usually keep the basic gray and add graphics on the fin, on the spine and around the cockpit. For a modeler that means a small job in painting and a large visual effect, which is why anniversary aircraft are built so often.

Before you reach for the sheet

Check the shape of the fin on your own kit, as different makers give it different heights. When laying a decal down, hold it by the edge of the film, never by the printed artwork, and draw the surplus water off from the edge. The set is in 1:48 scale and contains no plastic parts.

Who the set suits

It is a rewarding choice for a modeler who wants a European fighter with a story on the shelf but does not want to spend evenings masking complicated transitions. It also suits those who collect aircraft by unit: together with the other German wings it builds up a picture of how the Eurofighter gradually spread in the Luftwaffe from a single base to several.