1:32 Tempest Mk.V RAF masks for insignias

Stencils for the British insignia on the Tempest Mk.V

The set from Omask covers the national markings of the Royal Air Force on the Hawker Tempest Mk.V machine in 1:32 scale. The insignia is applied with an airbrush over the masked area, so the result blends with the surrounding camouflage. The package contains the stencils, not the kit of the aircraft.

Hawker Tempest Mk.V

The Tempest grew out of the Typhoon but received an entirely new laminar flow wing with a thin section and a lengthened fuselage. With the Napier Sabre engine it was among the fastest Allied machines near the ground and it entered service at the beginning of 1944. It became famous above all as the most successful hunter of V-1 flying bombs, which it could match for speed, and at the end of the war it also recorded kills of jet Me 262s as they were landing. The armament was made up of four cannons of 20 mm caliber in the wing.

Circular insignia and the airbrush

The British roundel is a system of concentric circles in which every inaccuracy gives itself away at once. The stencil therefore solves what is hardest in work by hand: keeping the individual rings concentric. Spray exactly square on to the surface, because an oblique application leaves a shadow under the edge, and apply the paint in thin coats. The stripe on the vertical tail surface is handled in the same way.

Suitable for

• builders of large British fighters who want insignia without film
• modelers who work with insignia shades after period photographs
• anyone interested in machines of the invasion period and of the hunt for the V-1
• those whose roundel in the original decal sheet was damaged