WWII USAAF Aircraft

Sixteen bottles instead of three sets

An extensive package for modelers who build American aircraft of the Second World War and do not want to put a palette together from several smaller sets. Sixteen shades cover the external camouflage tones, the metal finish of unpainted machines, interiors and both desert and European extras, so from the cockpit to the wingtips nothing else has to be obtained.

The basis is the olive drab and neutral gray pair, that is the appearance in which both fighters and bombers went to war. A darker olive variant of the later years is added, because the shade shifted during the war and machines from different batches evidently differed from one another. Anyone building the Pacific will appreciate the green and brown tones for service there, while anyone building the Mediterranean will reach for the sand and sandy yellow shades.

The aluminum tone for the era when camouflage was taken off the bombers altogether is not missing either: from 1944 it turned out that the weight and drag of the paint cost more than the protection nobody needed over Europe anyway. The interior part is represented by the yellow-green tone of cockpits and by black and gray for instrument panels and anti-glare panels.

The set is twice the size of the eight-color sets in the same line: it differs in the number of bottles, not in their volume. The advantage is that the palette does not have to be hunted down in parts.

During a build it is useful to know that American aircraft differed according to the factory that made them. The same type could have a different cockpit shade and a differently drawn boundary between the upper and lower surfaces, because every factory worked to its own practice. Photographs of the particular machine are therefore a more reliable guide than a general table.