AOA Decals has now switched over to the USAF in Vietnam for their next OV-10A decal sheet. This one covers a total of 16 aircraft. All USAF planes were painted in overall ADC Grey with white upper wings. Some planes had white leading edges to the fin and horizontal stabilizer.

All of these aircraft were assigned to the 19th to 23rd TASS. Unlike Navy/Marine Broncos of the time, these planes did not carry tail codes and were generally rather generic looking planes. However, many of them had color bands or designs on the spinners and some had some color on the upper fin. Not all planes were armed with cannon so keep that in mind. I also noticed that apparently the USAF did not use wing racks.

The instructions are superbly done and provide minute detail on the markings carried by these planes. They were not all uniform in term of stencils and there were a variety of prop blade tip colors and sizes as well. Each of the 16 markings options has its own dedicated area with notes. I have included a page from the AOA web site showing four of these planes. Normally, there are two planes on each markings placement sheet. Another nice addition to this set is a full load-out diagram, something I think you'll find quite useful.

A full set of stencils are included with enough to do two planes and that includes a nice upper wing walk decal, though you can paint that on if you so wish. Three different exhaust area markings are also included. Prop blade warning markings are provided. The decals themselves are superbly printed by Cartograf, who seems to be the industry leader at this point in time. For those wondering about kits, most will use the Academy kit, though Hasegawa and Airfix have produced OV-10As as well.

In all, it is an outstanding set and the decals work just great. I used the Navy markings on a recent build and was delighted with how well they worked. I should note that I'm pretty sure this sheet was originally designed for the Kitty Hawk 1/32 kit and so when I used the 1/72 prop stripes on my Academy kit, they were a bit too thin. Might want to consider painting those on.

July 2015

Thanks to AOA Decals for the review sheet. You can find this sheet and images of all the options at this link.

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