1:48 Grumman TBM-3 Avenger

The Avenger in its version from a car plant

The designation TBM belonged to the machines that were not built by Grumman but by the Eastern Aircraft division of the General Motors corporation. Grumman needed its capacity for Hellcat fighters, and so production of the largest carrier single-engine aircraft of the war was taken over by converted automobile plants. The version designated with a three received the more powerful Wright Cyclone powerplant and a strengthened wing, on which unguided rockets or a radar pod could be hung.

These machines flew in the closing phase of the Pacific campaign: they supported the landings on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, hunted submarines and took part in the sinking of the battleship Yamato. Their look matched the late naval three-tone scheme with a white underside, against which the geometric markings of the mother ship stood out.

The sheet is aimed at precisely this period. Besides the national insignia it contains fuselage numbers and the identification patterns with which the navy distinguished individual carriers from 1945, so that a model gains a clear attachment to a ship.

While working, go from the large areas to the small items and let every motif set before you touch the neighboring one. The carrier film is thin and a freshly laid decal shifts easily, even if you only wipe a brush against its edge. The curvature over the cover of the gun position is evened out by a softener.

Count on the Avenger being surprisingly large for a carrier aircraft - in 1:48 the span of the folding wings comes out at over thirty centimeters and the areas to be covered are big. And the white underside forgives nothing: every trapped bubbly edge of air is visible at first glance against a light surface.