Much to the delight of modelers, Aeromaster has continued the “Colorful Crusaders” line of decals. 

     This sheet follows the prototypical Aeromaster instruction sheet, being in full color, and having large left side profiles of each a/c on the sheet. No maintenance stenciling, and one set of national insignia is provided.  Like its other F-8 sheets, the star & bar that goes over the refueling blister door have been pre-cut along the door line.  The printing is sharp & clear, with nothing out of register, & minimal carrier film. I was able to find pictures of both these a/c in Steve Ginter’s series of books on the F-8.  The Monogram kit is recommended.

      First up is an F-8E from VMF (AW)-333 “Fighting Shamrocks”, with its instantly recognizable triple shamrock tail insignia. Note that for this “Echo” model F-8, there is no ECM fairing on the trailing edge of the vertical tail.  The photos of this a/c that are in the Ginter book show that this a/c had no maintenance stenciling on it, and the second set of wingtip position lights.  All other markings are standard for the time period (1967).

     The second a/c on the sheet is for an early F-8E from VF-33 “Tarsiers”, while forming the initial aircraft compliment of the then newly commissioned USS Enterprise CVN-65.  Noteworthy is the fact that the afterburner section is painted, rather than being left bare metal, & the radome appears to be a very dark gray.  This a/c also did not have the vertical tail trailing edge ECM fairing.  This a/c did have maintenance stenciling on it. The rudder decals (11 & 12) fit very well on the Monogram kit, as did the wingtip decals (24 & 25).   A fellow modeler brought to my attention that this F-8E was one of the initial batch of production F-8E’s & at the time period (1962-1963), it did not have the characteristic avionics hump over the wing center section that later was to become standard on the Echo & some of the later rebuilt models of the Crusader.  Finally, this a/c also had the second set of wingtip position lights. The photo’s show that the gun muzzles were gull gray, not the dark color that the instructions show.

      Both VMF (AW)-333 & VF-33 transitioned to the F-4, & then to the F/A-18A & F-14A respectively, but both were disestablished in the mid 90’s.

      I highly recommend this sheet, and am looking forward to future Colorful Crusader releases.

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