Here is a great sheet for those who want to do some really early US Pacific War aircraft. Yellow Wings has provided a sheet for the Wake defenders of VMF-211. This sheet includes enough markings for the modeler to build all of the aircraft attached to VMF-211 when based on Wake during the early days of the war. It includes the one aircraft left behind in Hawaii.

Not only does the sheet include all the codes and insignia, but also the prop warning stripes. The instructions are superlative in that there is a history of the unit's planes (which had the top camouflage applied during the trip over). Camouflage information in terms of the demarcation line is shown on the profile adorning the cover card. There is some discrepancy between the cover profile and the placement guide regarding the presence of an intake atop the cowling and no indication as to whether these planes had the additional frame in the windscreen quarter windows as seen on some F4F-3 aircraft, so a bit more research is needed in this regard. Hopefully, one of you reading this will know and can straighten me out.

It is a superlative sheet and one that I know I will be using in the near future as I've got a Wildcat kit on order just for this project. I'm sure you will be thrilled with yours.

February 2008

Thanks to Yellow Wings for the review samples.

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