1:48 Gloster Meteor F.8 - National Insignias for Airfix kits

A British jet classic of the 1950s

The Gloster Meteor F.8 was the peak of the day-fighter branch of the whole type. Compared with the older versions it received a nose half a meter longer, a reworked rudder taken over from the E.1/44 prototype, a Martin-Baker ejection seat and Derwent 8 engines. It was precisely the longer fuselage that shifted the center of gravity so that the machine stayed balanced even with the ammunition of its four 20 mm Hispano cannons used up.

The best-known combat deployment fell to Korea, where the Australian No. 77 Squadron flew the F.8. In dogfights with the faster MiG-15s it turned out that a straight wing was no longer enough for jet air combat, and the Australians switched to attacks on ground targets. In Europe the type served with British squadrons until the end of the 1950s and in other countries substantially longer still, so the choice of color schemes is really wide.

Working with a multicolor roundel

The cut shapes in this set cover the roundels as well as the supplementary markings. The film separates easily from the backing paper with flat-jawed tweezers, which helps a great deal when handling large circles.

The British circle has several concentric colors, so it is sprayed in layers from the lightest to the darkest. Let the paint flash off between the individual shades, otherwise the lower layer lifts along with the film when it is peeled away. Do not throw the peeled film away at once, not until you have checked against the light whether the edge is clean around its whole perimeter and no piece of paint is missing anywhere. Once the whole marking is finished, even the surface out with a single coat of matte varnish, so that the glossy intermediate layer under the circles does not show through anywhere and the machine looks of one piece.