Yellow-Wings Decals 1/48 USN & USMC SBD-2 Dauntless #2106 “Midway Madness”
By Matt Bittner
Yellow-Wings Decals does things a little differently than most decal producers. One of their themes, especially in 1/72, is to release a set of decals for not a specific aircraft but for multiple aircraft that flew during the "between-the-wars" period. This time they concentrate on a specific airframe.
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SBD-2 Dauntless #2106 has an interesting history. Not only did it serve on the USS Lexington before and after Pearl Harbor but it also participated in – and survived – the battle at Midway Island, this time serving with the U.S. Marine Corps. After that battle the aircraft was transferred to the Great Lakes to train Naval Aviators but it crashed in Lake Michigan and was lost. Fast forward a few years (around 50) and the airframe was recovered and restored, and now resides in the Naval Aviation Museum in Florida. So using this set of decals you can create the airframe in the following ways:
- SBD-2, 2106, VB-2, 2-B-2, USS Lexington, early 1941, pre-war, "yellow wing" colors
- SBD-2, 2106, VB-2, 2-B-2, USS Lexington, mid-1941, overall non-specular gray
- SBD-2, 2106, VB-2, 2-B-2, USS Lexington, early 1942, blue-gray on top with gray on the bottom
- SBD-2, 2106, VMSB-241, B-6, Midway, mid-1942, blue-gray on top with gray on the bottom
- SBD-2, 2106, CQTU, B-7, NAS Glenview, mid-1943, blue-gray on top with gray on the bottom
Decals are to the high standards one associates with Yellow-Wings Decals and registration looks to be well done. There are enough decals on this release so you can finish all five iterations of bureau number 2106. That means you can display the entire career of this aircraft using just this decal set. Nice!
Huge thanks to Yellow-Wings Decals for sending this review sample.