1:72 Fieseler Fi 156 Storch Part 2 - Around WWII Europe and Foreign Services

A war prize still flying in the 1950s

Few aircraft of the Second World War lived to see so long a career with so many armed forces. The Allies did not send captured storks to the scrapyard but took them into their own inventories: they served the Royal Air Force at the Farnborough test establishment as late as 1952, and in Finland, in Norway and with the Polish liaison units. Czechoslovakia adopted the type under the designation K-62 and put it into service with the police aviation.

Who is on the sheet

The best-known item is the machine used by Dwight Eisenhower. Beside it stands an aircraft of a fighter squadron in Libya in 1942, German reconnaissance units from Poland and the Eastern Front, a Romanian machine from Bessarabia in the autumn of 1942 and an Italian aircraft from the Mostar area. The series is closed by post-war examples from Finland, Norway and the British test establishment.

Package

Inside lies a printed carrier film with the national insignia of the individual states and with additional markings, and with it a list of the color schemes. The kit and paints are not included.

What to watch out for

Different users mean different sizes of national insignia. Before applying them it is a good idea to mark their position on the model with a pencil or masking tape, because moving a wet film across a landing gear strut tends to be tricky without a reference point. On the underside of the wing, where the insignia are largest, it works well to lay the decal on a damp surface and draw the excess water off with a brush from the center to the edges. Only then does it make sense to reach for the decal softener and let the film settle into the detail.