This next new Caracal Models sheet is for a very old kit, the Hasegawa 1/72 SP-5B Marlin. Old it may be, but it has the benefit of being the only one done and is still a fairly nice kit. I'm personally happy to see this sheet as I have a very old kit where the decals are total trash so these will find good use.

The sheet contains markings for seven aircraft; five USN and two French. Most of these are in white over FS 36081 engine grey, the standard scheme for patrol planes in the 1960s.

First up is a VP-45 plane  with an LN tail code from 1961. As a note, all these plane have the upper radome.

Next is the first of two planes from VP-48. It includes the original scheme and the later one when the engine grey swapped over to light gull grey. Note that these colors are all gloss.

With VP-49 is an LP tail coded plane  and the last USN version is from VP-31 in 1962. This was the training squadron and so the nose, wing tips and fin have large areas of fluorescent red on them.

The French planes are in white and sea blue, though the areas painted in these shades are different. Both aircraft are from Flotille 27F with the 1960 plane that carrying the tricolor tail markings. The 1963 version has a white upper hull and a white rudder with a different code presentation.

Caracal provides a full color instruction sheet and there are more images of this plane on their website. The decals themselves are printed by Cartograf so you know you are getting the best. It is interesting to me that just when this plane was removed from service, the Russians were introducing their Be-12.  

November 2015