If decals are the evil of the modeling world, then prepare to meet the devil. What do I mean? Come on, you know. You have a kit that you want to throw together. Maybe it's even a weekend "quickie". Then you start working on it, and either the kit decals suck, or you just want to do something a little different. So, you go online or down to your local shop and cruise through the decals. $5-$7 for some usable decals.  What's it gonna hurt?  You find some nice ones, and off you go. But as you work on your kit, you study the decals, and sooner or later you find yourself enamored with the quality of the decals and the other interesting schemes on the sheet. Before you know it, your weekend "quickie" has turned into three kits of the same plane all waiting to be built. I blame the decals.  They're pure evil.

Don't believe me? Well, I'm a dedicated Luftwaffe fan with no real interest in the P-51, and I'm about to write a review on a set of P-51 decals that caused me to buy a Hasegawa and two Tamiya P-51s on eBay. If you still think decals are harmless, you might want to leave this page now.

What we have here is a sheet of decals for the P-51B/D as offered by Sky Models from Italy. I had never really heard of Sky Models before, but I was pointed to their products at the Pacific Coast Models (www.pacmodels.com) in the MM forum, and I liked what I saw. Being the hardcore Luftwaffe guy, I started out looking at decals for those subjects.  You may be wondering how I came to an interest in the P-51 with its two basic schemes when the Bf109 is so interesting.  Easy.  The Luftwaffe can offer a multitude of colorful schemes, but there's one thing that they can't offer, and that is this:

Hey, don't blame me.  It was the decals.  Really.  I recently succumbed to the decal demons and acquired a stack of Hasegawa P-47s for some of the nose art Jabos in the excellent series from Eagle Strike. Another clear case of nice decals dictating a kit purchase instead of the other way 'round. So, having an recently-acquired interest in nose art, I found this P-51 sheet and had to have it.  Maybe it's because I'm in the Air Force myself, and with all the Political Correctness rammed down our throats, this bit of AF combat history just seemed very level-headed and refreshing.  After all, when the PC police come to investigate the busty babes on the P-47s and P-51s on my desk, I can indignantly retort that brave men of history fought and died in these machines.  Was it too much to ask to have a pretty lady on the side?  I don't think so.

The quality of the decals is superb. The entire sheet is very crisply printed and in perfect register. If there are better-quality decals out there, I haven't seen them. Mind you, I haven't tried to put any of them on, but I expect no trouble from these fine looking decals. What makes these decals the devil instead of the regular run-of-the-mill evil is the number of schemes you get from Sky Models sheets. There are 87 numbered decals with markings for 17 different Mustangs! For fans of the B model, I should point out that there is only one of these featured on this sheet - the other 16s are Ds.  But for fans of the D, you might want to pick up an extra kit or two for your pile.  The only other down side is that, as you can see, there are only national insignia and data for ONE aircraft.  Surely Sky Models didn't mean for you to have to choose only one from the 17 schemes on this sheet!  Ah, life isn't perfect you know, so you'll have to use the insignia from your kit or get a sheet of these decals separately.

The Instrux consist of a small b&w booklet with very basic profile depictions of the individual aircraft.  There is one plan view for an unusual scheme and another single plan view for the rest.   Each one has point outs and decal placement indications.  In the back of the guide, there is a nice color chart listing a full range of colors in various manufacturers' coding.

Review courtesy of my wallet, and therefore at some point your tax dollars!  Definitely worth the price!

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