F-104G Starfighter Decals

Victory Productions

HyperScale is proudly sponsored by Squadron

Reviewed by Graham Green

You get plenty or your money with this decal set. 

This sheet, well more precisely three sheets, albeit the other two are small, contains a plethora of decals for the F-104G and TF-104 in West German Luftwaffe and Marineflieger service. The main A4 size sheet contains all the badges and markings for the individual aircraft plus two sets of stencilling. 

Additionally there are two smaller sheets one of which contains more of the main Alpha/numeric lettering whilst the third sheet contains an additional eight ejector seat warning triangles. 

There are no less than fourteen different aircraft depicted on the very colourful and informative instruction sheet and of these twelve are for the Luftwaffe and the other two for the Marineflieger service. All are single seat aircraft apart from the two TF-104 two-seat versions, one from each service being represented. The standard paint scheme of Basaltgrau/Gelbolive/Silbergrau, predominates the choices on the sheet, some having the 'High Viz' Lechtorange bands on the wingtip tanks which will brighten the model up even more than the colourful badges for the various aircraft. A diagram of the standard splinter camouflage scheme is given on the second page of the instructions as a painting guide. To compliment the standard schemes there are two representations of the wrap round 'Lizard' scheme with drawings of the schemes pattern from both top and lower surfaces to aid masking and painting, plus there are the two Marineflieger aircraft in the Bassaltgrau/Silbergrau scheme. All the colours listed on the sheet give a Federal Standards (FS) equivalent number which may be helpful if you mix your own paint. Aircraft on sheet are representatives from AG51, AG52, JBG31, JBG32, JBG33, JBG34, JBG36, JG71, JG74, LVR1, MFG1, MFG 2, WTD61 and WS10.

I found the main instruction sheet extremely informative, giving helpful notes on each of the aircraft on the sheet and these were accompanied by a list of reference sources. A second 'Stencilling Placement Guide' instruction sheet shows the placing of all the stencilling on the model with an explanation about them. What a job this will be! There are such a lot of these small items that, to aid recognition and avoid confusion, Victory Productions have numbered them in such a way as to minimise any error of placement. The numbers in the 'teens' (i.e. 1 to 63) relate to the fuselage/fin sides, the '100' numbers relate to the underside stencilling (although there are a couple, '126', that go on the top of the wing also, mirroring the same as on the bottom) , the '200's to the topside and the '300' series to the tanks and pylons. It is noted that not all the aircraft represented on the sheet necessarily had all of the stencils provided, on them, so beware, and if possible look at a picture of the model you choose to do!

And of the decals themselves, well they were all in perfect register and they were crisply printed by Cartograf of Italy, a good indicator of quality in decal manufacture. The dotted lines for walkways etc. are extremely fine and the definition on all is excellent. They work well and go down on the model fine, the carrier film being very thin indeed with hardly any, if any, surround to the motif perceivable beyond the image itself(the dotted line decals do have a full carrier film, for obvious reasons!). 

A big thanks to Victory Productions for the sheet to review and I would go so far as to say that I think it is worth 'eleven out of ten' and can wholeheartedly recommend this decal sheet to any F-104G modeller.

Highly Recommended.

Victory Productions Decals are available direct from Victory Models Website

Review Copyright © 2001 by Graham Green
This Page Created on 18 July, 2001
Last updated 22 July, 2003

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