1:48 U.S. Letters & Numbers black

An alphabet for American airframes, this time in black

The marking of aircraft in the United States followed firm rules. The serial number on the fin, the code letter of the squadron, the number on the fuselage and the order designation within a formation were all set from one uniform range of characters, whose height was given in inches. It is exactly this logic that makes a loose alphabet such a useful item: it lets you put together the markings of a machine that is missing from a finished sheet, and add the data that the maker of a kit left out.

The black version suits light and medium-toned airframes. It comes into its own on trainers with a polished all-metal surface, on machines of ground units with a sand finish and on the undersides of naval aircraft, where a white base calls for a dark contrast. On a dark finish, by contrast, black disappears and a light counterpart is called for.

Setting the type is a matter of patience. It pays to lay the spacing between the characters out on paper in advance, because once a character is down its spacing can only be moved to a limited degree. A proven approach is to lay the characters from the middle of the inscription outwards and to align them along a strip of adhesive tape stuck parallel with a panel line.

Individual letters tend to be small, so cut as close to the print as possible and work over a light-colored mat, on which you will not lose a piece of film. Before it dries, check once more that the whole row sits in one straight line; once it has cured, putting it right means taking it off and using a new piece.

What is left of the sheet has a long life and will serve even years later, because the characters are not tied to a single type of machine. Modelers who build American equipment regularly usually keep one such set as a permanent stock and reach for it whenever a serial number is missing from a box or gets damaged during a build.