1:48 SBD Dauntless Family Rear cockpit 3D-Printed & coloured Interior on decal paper (Accurate Miniatures/Academy/etc)

The rear seat from which the whole machine was defended

The Douglas SBD Dauntless was a two-seater. In front sat the pilot, who brought the machine into its dive over the perforated dive brakes, and behind him the radio operator and gunner, facing backwards. At Midway in 1942 formations of these bombers decided the fate of four Japanese aircraft carriers, and the rear gunners were the only defense against fighters.

The brand splits the interior of this type into two separate items, front and rear. There is a practical reason: the rear space stayed essentially the same across the individual versions, while the instrument panel changed with every one. One item therefore covers the whole family and the other one particular early form, and the modeler picks either one or both according to the machine being built.

What you get is the flat equipment of the rear section: the side walls with their gear, the radio, the magazine stowage, the harness and the area around the gun ring. Everything comes in color and with relief, so there is no need to mix an interior shade or to draw in small placards. It is applied by decal technique to the parts of a kit under construction. A decal softener does not belong here, as it attacks the printed resin.

The rear section has one advantage over the pilot's: it lies shallow under the open canopy and tends to be the best visible part of the finished model, especially when the glazing is built open. The recommended order of work follows from that. The walls come first, then the floor and the equipment, and the seat with the harness right at the end, so that it does not get in the way of your hand. The aircraft kit is a different item; here it is the equipment of its interior.