Linden Hill Decals 1/48 L-39 Albatros Russian Stencil Data Decal First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Alright you fans of Soviet & Russian military aviation, Linden Hill has released a complete set of Cyrillic (Russian) maintenance stencils for the Aero L-39 Albatross. This trainer is in service with many nations around the world and has become an 'inexpensive' warbird in other countries ( check here for a walk around of the aircraft).

Two full pages of diagrams lay out the locations for all of the common stencils, while a third page lays out the stencils unique to the trainer and to the tactical versions of the aircraft.

I decided to have a little fun with this set for the review. As you can see in the images, the stencils are indeed 'fine print' and with many of the contemporary decal printers, the lettering in very small fonts is lost due to the worsening resolution of their print equipment.

In this case, however, there is not a thing wrong with this printer's equipment, I can read the smallest font. What's more, the stencils I looked at specifically were even spelled correctly - mind you that these stencils are in Cyrillic and you can always tell when the decal artists that are 'faking it' with misspellings (or pure gibberish). These stencils are well done, and even some of the printing is partially blanked out to replicate some wear on the stencils. Granted, many folks can't read Russian and wouldn't know the difference, but if you are as picky about your details as I am, you only want the best on your model.

This is a nice addition to the 1/48 L-39 kit from MPM and will add some nice visual fidelity to your next Albatross project.

Linden Hill Decals can be purchased directly from their website at http://www.lindenhillimports.com/.

My sincere thanks to Linden Hill Decals for this review sample!