Belgian Air Force "Solo Display 2012-2013"
After some delay, here is my newest review of a decal sheet, this time covering an F-16 of my home country.
Produced by Syh@rt, the subject is the F-16AM serial number FA-84 with the special colour scheme for the Belgian Air Force F-16 Solo Display team season 2012-2013, 2013-2014 and 2014 - 2015, although the latter two are not mentioned on the sheet.
Based on Florennes Air Base, home of the 2nd Tactical Wing, and flown by Capt. "Grat" Renaud Thys, the aircraft received thus stuning paint scheme out of the hands of Bruno Ghilis and Sylvain Hautier. Sylvain is the owner of Syhart.
The sheet is available in two scales, 1:48 and 1:72. The catalogue numbers are 48-071 and 72-071.
It comes in a zip bag and contains 1 decal sheet (2 for the 1:48 scale) and a 4 page instruction sheet.
As always, let's first have a look at the decals.
The decals are printed in house on a very light blue, almost greyish background. On both scales, the colours are correctly represented, as one can find out with the provided RAL/FS references and all are in registers. Even on the 1/72 scale, the very small ones are readable. The film is kept to a minimum.
The bilangual (English and French) instruction sheets are again printed in a mix from of full colour for the decal placement and in black/white for the painting instructions. My 1:48 version had 2 more pages, by having at the back of the painting instructions an instruction on how to deal with the decals..
The decal placement instruction sheet provides not only a clear very view on where to put the decals by showing al four sides of the aircraft. It provides also additional references about how to work with the volutarily oversized ones.
The painting instructions, needed before placing the decals, provides next to the painting sheme also references for four colours (although 5 are mentioned on the decal sheets). FS16118, FS16270, RAL5013 and RAL9006 (FS16375 is additionally mentioned on the decal sheet). For ech of the 4 colours, at least 2 corresponding paints or mixtures are provided.
The back page of this package provides some nice in-flight pictures of the real aircraft.
These sheets are a must-have for any Belgian F-16 lovers.
I'm secretly awaiting the decals of the current F-16 demo and those of the demo aircraft before this one!!! I hope Syh@art read my mind here...
They are still available at Syh@rt for € 11,00 (1:72) or € 14,00 (1:48), so get them before they are gone!
Review decals courtesy of me and my wallet!
(PS: the scans will be replaced whenever I get a new and better scanner)
