Aeromaster 48-094: Dewoitine D.520 Collection part 1

The best wartime fighter in service with the French during the early part of the war was the Dewoitine D.520. Typical of the French aero industry in the late 1930s and early 1940, there were airframes sitting around for the lack of common items like propellers. This meant that after the surrender, quite a few of these planes were available. They were used both by the Germans, Axis partners and by the Vichy French, though most often these planes were based in Northern Africa, where they wore the yellow and red 'Vichy Stripes'. Towards the end of the war there were some used by Free French forces.

This sheet has markings for three Vichy French aircraft all in standard French colors of green, brown and blue-grey over light blue-grey.

The first, with full red and yellow stripes is from GC II/7 based in Morocco in November of 1942. This option also has the red, white and blue bands on the wings. Note that the fuselage insignia and stripe have been overpainted with the underside color.

Next is  a GC II/7 plane from July-August 1940 when all the was required was a white stripe on the fuselage.

The third GC II/7 plane, also based in Morocco, but this time in 1941 does not have the wing stripes but has the red and yellow nose and tail ones. It also has the white fuselage stripe. Note that the nose stripes on this one are curved.

The sheet provides enough insignia and tail stripes to do two of the three planes. The red Vichy Stripes are provided, meaning the builder has to paint the nose and tail yellow first. At the time of printing (1994) only the LTD and JMGT short run kits were available in 1/48. Since then, Tamiya has produced an excellent kit. Now there is no guarantee that these decals will actually fit the Tamiya kit, but whatever adjustment is needed should be minor.

October 2017

Copyright ModelingMadness.com. All rights reserved. .

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and fairly quickly, please contact the editor or see other details in the Note to Contributors.