Yellow-Wings Decals 1/48 USMC SNJ-3 1942
By Mike Whye
Yellow-Wings Decals has became well known among modelers for creating great sets of decals for U.S. military aircraft from the early 1930s to the early part of World War II. Each set of decals from Yellow-Wings contains four-color and black-line drawings and placement instructions. All decals are printed by Microscale.
Set 48-080 contains a large sheet of decals and a smaller sheet to replicate two complete SNJ-3 trainers used by the U.S. Marine Corps in early 1942.
One SNJ-3 depicted by the decals of this set is an instrument trainer flown by VMD-254 Photographic Unit at Naval Air Station San Diego. These decals are for an SNJ that has a natural metal finish fuselage and the undersides of the wings and yellow upper wings. Decals include six national roundels with red centers, green fuselage and wing bands, red and white rudder stripes, black wing walks, ID numbers, and those for tri-color propeller tips.
The other SNJ this set of decals can depict is a gunnery trainer used by the First Marine Aircraft Wing at Quantico, Virginia. This aircraft had a blue-gray upper surfaces and light gray under surfaces.
Decals include four national roundels (that are smaller than those used with the NMF/yellow version) with red centers, red and white rudder stripes and those for creating tri-color prop tips.
Our thanks to Yellow-Wings Decals for this review set.