LPS Hobby 1/144 Airliner Decals
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LPS Hobby is a fairly new name to the aftermarket airliner decal world,
and they have come out with some great subjects. As they are from Brazil,
they are focusing on local airlines, which is great for those of us who
want an international collection on their shelves. The first four sheets
offer up some nice liveries for jet airliners: one for the Avro RJ85 and
three for the Boeing 737.
 The
first sheet, LPS144-01, is for the Air Brasil RJ85. Air Brasil was founded
in 1991 with the hopes of connecting the three largest Brazilian cities
with multiple flights daily. With a partnership between Líder Táxi
Aéreo and TNT, the routes were selected and aircraft were painted
up. However, before the first commercial flights could take place, TNT
pulled out of the partnership, leaving Líder Táxi Aéreo
to try and carry on alone. They tried, but eventually gave up in 1992
due to delays in getting the routes needed.
While Air Brasil was not successful in operations, they did have a very
attractive logo, consisting of a large green, blue, and yellow hummingbird
on the tail. The aircraft was overall white, with green titles on the
forward fuselage. As these were for a new airline, and one that did not
really go anywhere, these aircraft have US registrations and will be very
clean in appearance. The decal sheet provides some of the stenciling,
but recent releases from Revell Germany have extensive data and stenciling
on the kit decals as well. With the freshly painted appearance of these
planes, this would be a great option to apply each and every one of those
stencils (much to the detriment of your eyesight, I’m sure).
 The
next two sheets are for the Trans Brasil 737-300/400s. The first sheet
(LPS144-02) provides the decals for the aircraft as originally painted,
from 1886 to 1998, while the second has the current livery. The original
livery has that colorful rainbow on the tail, making this an airline easy
to pick out of a lineup. Interestingly, these aircraft also had different
colored titles and door outlines, using the colors of the rainbow. This
sheet includes the orange, green, and medium blue options, but there was
also red, light blue and dark blue. These colors also applied to the registrations
and Boeing tag lines, which makes for some interesting variations here.
 For
the new colors (LPS144-03), the multi-colored titles have gone away, and
the rainbow has been changed a bit to wrap around the underside of the
rear fuselage. This scheme has you painting the rear fuselage and tail
blue (along with the engines), while the new stylized rainbow is a one-piece
decal for each side. For both sheets, there are door outlines, window
decals, engine stencils, and wing walkways.
 The
final 737 sheet is LPS144-04, with decals for the current scheme for VASP
737-200s. VASP is an airline with a long heritage, dating back to 1933.
It also has a rather long-lived current livery, with the current scheme
put in place in 1986. That is not to say that it is a boring livery, in
fact I find it to be a nice blend between the billboard schemes and classic
cheatlines. This sheet includes both passenger and cargo decals, including
the VASPEX titles for their fast courier service. Like the Trans Brasil
decals, this sheet includes door outlines and some stenciling. No window
decals are provided, though, so if you fill the windows on the Airfix
kit, you will have to source those windows from somewhere else.
The quality of these decals looks quite high, with excellent color depth
and alignment. They feel thin on the paper, but with any new decal company,
I would recommend using some of the unused decals as tests to see how
they react to your setting solutions and decal application techniques.
My thanks to LPS Hobby for the review samples. LPS Decals are available
from Airline Hobby Supply. |
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