1:48 British National Insignias - Supermarine Spitfire

Royal Air Force roundels for the most famous British fighter

The Supermarine Spitfire went through the war from the Mk.I with a two-blade propeller to the late machines with the Griffon engine, and the markings on its wings and fuselage changed along with it. Prewar and early wartime machines carried a rich type with a bright red, which was toned down in the summer of 1940 for the sake of visibility from the air. From the middle of the war a type with a thin white and yellow surround prevailed, and a vertical three-color stripe was added on the vertical tail.

It is exactly this development that the sheet covers. It lets you build the same type of aircraft in the appearance it had in a particular year, without combining leftovers from kit decals, which tend to be inconsistent in color and often do not even match the correct diameter for the period in question.

The printing is done as waterslide decals on a thin carrier film. The cut-out piece is laid in lukewarm water, after a few tens of seconds the film releases and the marking slides onto the model. The base should be smooth and glossy, otherwise air is trapped under the decal and the edge lightens.

Once dry, the excess bedding is settled with a decal softener so that the marking follows the riveted seams, and the whole is unified with a matte or semi-gloss coat depending on how well kept the machine was.

The greatest difference from the aging sheets in kits tends to be in opacity. As soon as a dark camouflage finish shows through a roundel, the marking loses its richness and the model looks unconvincing even in a photograph. This sheet has a layer of color thick enough for the red center to stay red even over a green-brown patch.