As I mentioned in the preface to the other sheet, Westland was not always a builder of helicopters. It gained its reputation by building what are known as 'colonial bombers'. These were multi-purpose aircraft that were often used in the far flung areas of the empire. They had to be easy to maintain, ruggedly built and able to perform light bombing, reconnaissance, and other duties in such diverse places as Iraq or India or South Africa; where ever there was an outpost of the British Empire that needed such aircraft.

Westland was the winner of requirement A.39/34 for a monoplane army co-ooperation aircraft. These planes would be mostly used for artillery spotting. As a result, the plane had to be able to operate close to the front lines where the unit commanders could have ready access to the planes. They also had to be able to take off and land in a relatively small area as prepared landing fields were not going to be available to them. The resulting aircraft, the Lysander, was perfect for this role. Not only did it have good short field performance, but was rugged and able to carry several passengers as well as some light bombs. 

The aircraft also had the ability to protect itself. There was a rear defensive .303 machine gun as well as two forward firing fixed .303 guns. During the 'Phoney War' in November of 1939, a Lysander of the British Expeditionary Force was actually credited with shooting down a marauding He-111 bomber!

The Lysander has not been very well represented in decal sheets and not at all in 1/32. It was up to Max Decals, an Irish based company to finally produce sheets for this plane. The results are well worth the wait. Max has chosen Propagteam to print their decals and it was a good choice. The decals are crisply printed, in perfect register and quite thin. It is because of this thinness that the modeler will have to be a bit more careful in applying these decals. However, the results are well worth the extra effort.

This sheet has markings for three aircraft.

The first is one from the Turkish Air Force around 1939. This Lysander II is in dark green/dark earth upper with silver undersides. 

Next is a Lysandter TTIII target tug from 755 Sq FAA around 1942. This is in the normal dark earth/dark green upper, but with black and yellow bands for the undersides.

Finally another target tug, this time for the 3rd Gunnery and Tow Target Flight of the 8th Air Force in March of 1944. Like the aircraft above, it is in dark earth/dark green over yellow/black. While it has US markings on the fuselage, the wings retain the RAF roundels.

Any one of these schemes would look great on the Matchbox kit and will undoubtedly produce an impressive model when complete. 

Max Decals has color copies of the instruction sheet at their website. Just click on the hyperlink below to access it. Max Decals informs me that their decals are being distributed by Squadron so obtaining them should not be a problem.

Review copy courtesy of Max Decals. Thanks for your support

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