To me, one of the more interesting aircraft is the French Vautour. Developed as an interceptor, this aircraft could also be used as a night fighter, recce bird or a light bomber as needs developed. It has not done too well in kit form, especially 1/72 as the only available kits are short run versions from HiTech or Mach 2, companies whose products are not known for a high level of buildability. Perhaps some day MPM or Sword will see fit to give us better kits of this important Gallic aircraft.

As has been the norm with this superb decal maker, this sheet covers all the different variants of the Vautour that have ever served in the IAF. The superb instruction booklet contains excellent decal placement and color information using high quality drawings and photos of the actual aircraft. Not only that, but since these aircraft were generally named, there is a complete listing of which aircraft number corresponds to which name.

The Vautour was flown operationally by one squadron, the Knights of the North Squadron. This sheet provides markings for the three major color schemes used by the aircraft. The first was an overall bare metal finish as when the planes were delivered in the late 1950s. This was followed by a blue (FS 35045) and brown (FS 30215) over grey (FS 36492) scheme that was used during the mid/late 1960s. In the early 1970s the was changed to a more 'modern' scheme of brown (FS 30219), green (FS 34227) and sand (FS 33531) over light blue (FS 35622).

In addition, there are data stencils for each of the three schemes; starting with French for the original scheme and two Hebrew stencils for the repaints. Decals are produced by Microscale so you have no worries about quality or how they will work with setting solutions. If you have one of the earlier-mentioned kits and need a set of quality decals, then these are what you should seek.

Review sheet courtesy of and available from various retailers around the world.

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