1:48 General Motors FM-2 Wildcat

Six machines from six escort decks

The last combat form of the family of straight-winged naval fighters was the version built for escort carriers, that is for the vessels that protected convoys, hunted submarines and supported landings. This sheet offers no fewer than six options, and each leads to a different ship or to a different part of the closing stages of the war in the Pacific.

The sheet holds the aircraft with a black 20 of squadron VC-36 from April 1944, the machine with a white 16 of squadron VC-79 from May 1945, a white 17 of squadron VF-26 from October 1944 and a white 52 with its serial number given, of squadron VC-27 from January 1945. The line-up is completed by the white code B6 of squadron VC-99 from the autumn of 1944 and the machine with a white 11 of squadron VC-80 from the end of the same year.

How to use the sheet

Three of the aircraft listed are tied to the names of particular pilots. A model can therefore be built as the portrait of one machine, complete with the small personal markings the crews drew on the fuselages. The remaining options, on the other hand, suit modelers who want to show the ordinary service appearance of a carrier unit.

White numbers on a dark blue-gray ground call for a well-sealed glossy surface, otherwise matte patches will appear under the carrier film. It is also worth checking how high on the fuselage the individual codes sit, because with carrier squadrons their position changed from year to year.

The brand has issued two separate sheets on this subject and their contents do not overlap. Anyone building several machines of the same version will get ten different marking options by combining them, without a single aircraft being repeated.