The Russians still find flying boat ASW platforms to be useful and so developed the Beriev Be-12 to perform that task. This aircraft has been in service for decades and has been upgraded in terms of its electronics and the airframe has also been modified for use as an air tanker for fire fighting, similar to the CL-415.

This new sheet from Caracal provides six different options, four of them in standard overall grey and two of them in very colorful schemes. The lone moded for this sheet is the very recent kit by Modelsvit, which by all accounts is quite nice.

So let's get to the grey planes first. Three of these are with the Russian Navy from the 2004 to 2014 time frame. All have yellow orange bort numbers on the rear of the hull and one of them sports a sharkmouth on the forward lower hull. The fourth is an Egyptian plane from 1968.

The first colorful plane is a Be-12P from 1997. This must be a demonstrator as it has civil registration. There are large red stripes down both sides of the fuselage and on the upper fuselage as well. Red wing tips, prop spinners, lower floats and lower hull add even more color. All these red areas save the floats have white outlines.

The final option is one of those fire bombers I mentioned. This is shown on the cover sheet and is a very complex scheme. The white stripes are provided on the sheet along with the registration, but all the blue and red bits will require some masking. Note that this plane also has additional windows mid hull and the MAD boom has been deleted. A lot of work to duplicate this scheme, but it will be a beauty.

Caracal provides a full color instruction sheet and there are more images of this plane on their website. The decals themselves are printed by Cartograf so you know you are getting the best. 

November 2015