In 2002, Lifelike produced this sheet and it quickly sold out. With the release of the new Tamiya kit,it was felt that a reissue would be in order. Like the earlier sheet, this has markings for eight aircraft of the famed 244th Sentai. The aircraft are either in Kawasaki dark green mottles over unpainted metal or overall unpainted metal. Most have the white defense bands on the wings and fuselage, though the modeler will need to paint those on. You'll also need to paint the e red tails on those that have them.  The sheet has insignia for one plane, but you can use kit markings for others if you so wish. This set includes two sets of wing leading edge ID markings. Yes, one is red and that is for the second option.

The sheets provide the subtype of Ki-61 (long or short nose) along with the pilot. A rather well done instruction sheet provides more aircraft information as well as where the primary reference for the scheme came from. In those cases where the information is unknown, options are provided for the modeler to make their choice. These new sheets are printed by Microscale, so do not have the semi-transparency issues of the previous Propagteam printed decals.

The aircraft are listed vertically from the left and so here are the pilots:

Aircraft 1 and 2 are Kobayashi

Aircraft 3 is Takashima

Aircraft 4 is Ishihara

Aircraft 5 is Suzuki

Aircraft 6 is Shinomiyao

Aircraft 7 is pilot unknown

Aircraft 8 is Ando

The recommended kits are Tamiya for the long nose and Hasegawa for the short nose.

February 2017

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My thanks to Lifelike Decals for the review set. Check you local hobby shop for availability.

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