Scale Plastic & Rail

Tail Codes for WWII Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft from Aviaeology

Details: Published on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 James Hatch

Colour & Code series.
Aviaeology
Catalogue # see inventory of items below
Available from Aviaeology for $8.59USD (1:72) and $10.99USD (1:48)

covers

Aviaeology have re-released their sets of decals for IJN Tail Codes, in four colours; yellow, red, black and white. These releases are in 1:72 and 1:48 scales. When these decals were originally released, they were done so with Digital Silk technology (Industrial Ink Jet), which some had said wasn't as refined as traditional silk-screen methods of printing, and to this end, Aviaeology has listened to its customers and now brought out these sets of decals using silk-screen technology.

Please note that the codes on these products vary from the original release by having an 'm' in them, meaning 'modified'.

The items received here are:
• A0D72C20m, 1:72, WWII IJN Tail Codes, 280mm, Yellow
• A0D72C21m, 1:72, WWII IJN Tail Codes, 280mm, Red
• A0D48C22m, 1:48, WWII IJN Tail Codes, 280mm, Black
• A0D48C23m, 1:48, WWII IJN Tail Codes, 280mm, White

Aviaeology do make it clear that it is impossible to reproduce every character style used by the IJN, but the more common styles seen on these machines can be seen on this decal sheet. They have also given instruction on how to model various characters that were represented in a tall, elongated fashion by slicing up unused characters. These sheets do carry a lot of characters, so you'll have no shortage of choice if this is an option you wish to take.

Characters across all sets include standard Japanese letters and numbers, as well as 'English' letters and numbers, with the latter being given in a Japanese style typeface.

The 1:72 sheets measure about 65mm x 190mm, and contain literally hundreds of characters, grouped in alpha-numerical order and in Japanese script type. The 1:48 set is similarly designed, and also contains hundreds of characters; certainly enough to satisfy the most ardent IJN modeller for some time to come. Without counting individual characters, I can't readily compare the decal numbers per sheet.

There are some differences between both 1:72 sheets and 1:48 sheets. The 1:72 sheets aren't simply copies of each other, in different colours. This applies to the 1:48 also. The red sheet contains far more English type characters than the yellow sheet, whilst the yellow sheet also contains some actual 'words' in Japanese as well as the copious numbers of Japanese symbols.

The 1:48 black white sheets are quite similar, but with the exception of a row the Japanese 'words', with the quantity of the other type of decal being roughly consistent.

All sheets are beautifully printed and pin-sharp. With the exception of the black and white sets, the others have a white 'opaquing' layer onto which the yellow and red are printed. From this point of reference, I can say that those are in perfect register. The decals are also incredibly thin and should conform well to your model exterior. Check first though with a spare decal if you wish to use decal setting solutions. My previous Aviaeology decals did work well with solutions, and they were also Silk type printing (Sharkmouth Typhoon) . Carrier film is at a bare minimum.

Each set comes with a sheet of instructions which give the modeller the ideal way of applying them to their aircraft, as well as those notes on customising letters to the more elongated type sometimes seen on IJN types.

Here are the sheets themselves: