Yellow-Wings Decals 1/48 F4F-3/4 Wildcat VF-6, VF-41, VF-72 Decal First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Yellow-Wing Decals continues to amaze me with their well-researched line of decals. As those of you who've seen previous offerings, the premise of this decal maker was to present decal subjects for primarily US Navy and US Marine Corps aircraft prior to World War II, back when they all wore yellow wings.

As Wayne Tevlin, the owner and researcher will tell you, there are plenty of interesting pre-war subjects out there, but as he goes through the archives, he happens across subjects like this one that are hard to pass up. This set covers two pre-war and one early war F4F Wildcats from VF-6, VF-41 and VF-72. I know the cover says VF-42, but Wayne confirmed over the phone that the cover and cover art should indicate VF-41.

The aircraft in this set include:

• F4F-4, 5193, 13, VF-6, USS Enterprise, Aug 1942
• F4F-3, 1865, 41-F-1, VF-41, USS Ranger, Early 1941
• F4F-3, 1880, 72-F-16, VF-72, USS Wasp, Early 1941

This set is one of Yellow-Wings Decals' new formats that provide all of the markings for specific aircraft. Their previous line is still available where you can obtain the national markings, identification bands, and squadron decals separately so you have the flexibility to replicate any aircraft in any of the published squadrons. For those who want it all in one set, this series is what you're looking for.

This set is printed by Microscale and none of the decals require multiple layers (one atop another) to replicate any given marking and each of the decals is in perfect register. It makes you wonder about those other decal companies that do multiple layered decals and blame Microscale...

Yellow-Wings Decals can be purchased directly from their website at www.yellow-wingsdecals.com.

My sincere thanks to Yellow-Wings Decals for this review sample!