Sheet:

Superscale 72-298: Hellcat Aces

Units: See review

Price

Long OOP

Reviewer:

Scott Van Aken

This is one of the earlier Superscale sheets and as such, isn't exactly a gold mine of information for the modeler. Guess this is when aftermarket decals were for 'advanced modelers' who had lots of references. Only on the outer packet does it say anything of use i.e. Vraciu, McCambell, Brown, Flatley, Valencia. We can assume that these planes were piloted by those aces, though which is which is not stated.

Now I'm not exactly totally up to speed on aces as I've been one of those modelers who is more focused on the planes and not the pilots. Others are more into the men than the machines so would know this stuff.

I can tell you that #00 is Flatley, Minsi III is Mc Cambell, and I believe that #19 is Vraciu. I'm also a bit confused as to versions shown. They have a overall gloss blue Hellcat with no small aft window listed as a -3 and some tri-color planes with small aft windows listed as -5 versions. I'd do some additional checking before I'd totally believe what Superscale has suggested for these planes. They could be totally correct, but I'm doubting it.

One thing for sure, they will look nice on whatever 1/72 Hellcat you choose. No kit is suggested, but at this time, only Airfix and perhaps Heller had Hellcats in this scale. Nowadays we have the very nice Hasegawa and Academy versions to add to the mix.

There are tons of insignia and such on the sheet so you could probably do all of them. There is a single pair of small red surround insignia for Flatley's plane. I'd have thought the wings would have the red surround as well. Do your research!

Sheet courtesy of my decal collection.

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