The Petlyakov Pe-2 is an important and attractive aircraft that you still don’t see around much in model form. One reason was that up until recently there were very few kits available with the hard to find Airfix one being all that was available. However , as things seem to go in this feast or famine hobby, the past few years has suddenly seen a veritable explosion of kits released in both scales. In 1/72 there is the Bilek (which I understand is the Airfix kit) and the relatively recent release from Italeri, a cooperative with Zvezda. Though this kit has raised panel lines it is a very nice model. There is also the third option of a limited run kit from Zlinek to consider. In 1/48 two all new kits hit the market at the same time, offerings from MPM and HiPM with the HiPM offering reportedly the slightly better of the two. Even with all of this I see very few of them posted on the internet, which is my somewhat flawed gauge of what might be popular.

All of this manufacturer action leads to what one would assume might be a newly pent up demand for markings, which is where Eagle Strike. This is the first what appears to be the first sheet of at least two, so lucky for me there is a big Pe-2 fan at Eagle Strike. On this sheet there are five different Soviet operated Pe-2s with three of them in the usual VVS colors of Green, Grey and Brown, but with some interesting badges and nose art. The two that attracted me to the sheet where the schemes in winter distemper. The sixth option is an interesting one in that it is a Finnish machine in a “splinter” camouflage and a yellow fuselage band and wing tips similar to what one would see on something like a Luftwaffe Bf 110.

The decals are well printed and are of good quality as you would expect from a company with close ties to Aeromaster. However, one area where I feel the sheet falls down is in the instructions. The colors called out unfortunately don’t always agree with what is actually pictured in the profile leaving the modeler to make the decision between pictured profile and instruction sheet. The second problem is that other than on the Finnish example there are no views of the aircraft upper surfaces.  With respect to the camouflage patterns  the modeler is left to guess (my favorite methodology) or seek out references for the appropriate  references. Unfortunately finding these references for Soviet aircraft is rarely easy…

Despite this complaint which is very remediable by the enthusiast, all in all this is a great sheet that should interest anyone interested in the VVS.

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