1:48 Avia S-199 Erla IDF markings airbrush mask for Eduard

The machine that earned the nickname Mezek

The postwar Avia S-199 came about out of necessity: airframes of the German fighter survived in Bohemia, but the original engines burned in a warehouse fire, and so a bomber powerplant with a massive propeller was set in the nose. The result was an aircraft with difficult behavior on takeoff, which at home was called nothing other than Mezek, meaning mule. In 1948 several of them went to Israel, where they became the very first fighter equipment of the Israeli Air Force; local crews named it after a knife.

Why masks instead of decals

The Israeli markings consist of a dark six-pointed star in a light circle, a motif where the transition of a film on a rounded fuselage would easily give itself away. A sprayed marking, by contrast, blends into the finish because it lies in the same layer as the paint around it, and there is no risk of silvering or of a raised edge after years. The templates are cut to the outlines of the kit named above, so they fit the panel lines with no trying and shifting.

How to proceed

First spray the light component of the marking, let it dry well and only then lay on the second mask for the dark star. Press the covering pieces down with a toothpick, above all along the edges, and spray at right angles to the surface so that the paint cannot get under the film. Take the masks off while the coat is still fresh, with tweezers and an oblique pull rather than straight up. Any adhesive that stays behind can be picked up with a piece of an eraser; solvents in this place would attack the fresh paint under the marking as well.