One of the most visually stunning schemes applied to aircraft are usually to second line units. Target Drone director aircraft come to mind as being probably the most gaudy and coming in close is the scheme applied to many of the Air Training Units (ATUs) that were operated by the Navy. These units were generally where a pilot went to learn more about the aircraft or to get experience in weapons training or the like. ATU-206 was one of these and operated obsolescent types for this job.

In 1958, the F9F-2 Panther was one of those types and flew from Pensacola, FL where there was miles and miles of Gulf of Mexico in which to expend ordnance. Painted in the then-new Light Gull Grey over White scheme, these planes were festooned with a lot of red to make them visible to others. This sheet carries everything you need to turn the Trumpeter F9F-2 into one of these planes. Now both the instructions and packet say F9F-2P, but the drawing is of a standard plane and the sheet says it is a standard F9F-2 and that is what I'll go with. The modeler will have to paint the pylons and the wide red stripes themselves, but the rest are provided as decals.

Please note that the photo from which this scheme came showed that the aircraft did NOT have the ARA-25 chin fairing so you don't need to use any aftermarket bits for this one.

A fine sheet that should sell quite well.

June 2007