As the Spitfire and Hurricane are the most well known British fighter aircraft of WW2, so the Lancaster is the best known British bomber of the period. The Lancaster entered service in quantity around 1943 and for the rest of the war was the backbone of Bomber Command's night bombing of German cities and towns.

The Lancaster has been well represented by kit makers, the best known of the lot being from Matchbox and Airfix in 1/72 and Tamiya in 1/48. However, there has been a dearth of decent decals sheets for this imposing aircraft. That has come to an end with this excellent sheet from Albatros Modelworks.

As with their earlier sheets, this one is superbly done and comes with a great color decal placement chart. An addition to this chart is a sheet showing the location of common markings and wingwalks. This sheet is available in 1/72 and 1/48, however only the 1/48 sheet was sent for review so I will keep all my comments to that sheet. It appears that the same aircraft are depicted on the 1/72 sheet as both sheet numbers are given on the instructions. Undoubtedly there are more common markings in the smaller scale sheet to allow one to build several aircraft from the sheet. In the 1/48 sheet, there are enough of those markings to do one aircraft.

So what is on the sheet? Well to start with you can do any one of five aircraft. All of them feature basically the same paint scheme of green and brown upper colors with black undersides. Four are RAF and the fifth is from the Argentine AF. All of the RAF aircraft sport some sort of nose art or markings. 

When one thinks of aircraft nose art, the Lancaster isn't the first aircraft to come to mind. Mostly one thinks of Fortresses or Liberators or even the Superfortress. However, RAF crews have always been more than willing to put scantily clad ladies on the nose of their aircraft when the opportunity has arisen. Just look at the artwork out of Desert Storm to put proof to that!

Anyway, the first aircraft is a B.X from 428 Sq RCAF at the end of the war. This one is titled 'Sugars Blues'. I haven't a clue what that is in reference to. This one has no top turret. Just to show you the quality of the decals, I have enlarged the nose art for this particular aircraft. It is shown several times its real size. You can see that it is superbly done!

The next aircraft as well as all the rest, are B.I versions with the upper turret. BH*F 'The Lady in the Champagne Glass' was with 300 Sq, one of the Polish squadrons formed early in the war. There are three different forms of mission markings offered for this aircraft depending on the time period one wishes to model the aircraft.

Next is QB*P of 424 Sqadron RCAF. this one is entitled 'Piccadilly Princess' and has the larges nose art of any of the five aircraft on the sheet. It also has light grey codes instead of the red ones that are on the other aircraft.

IQ*Q is an unnamed Lancaster from 150 Squadron, RAF. You can see from this and the other aircraft shown, that the code sequence for the opposite side of the aircraft is given. This is very helpful as some RAF aircraft did not always follow the standards.

Finally, one of the 15 Lancasters delivered to the Argentine AF in 1948. For those of you that want to do something a bit different with your Lanc!

This sheet also gives references for those of you who wish more information on the one you are going to model.

Another excellent sheet from the folks at Albatros Modelworks.  If your hobby shop does not carry this and other sheets, you can get them direct by visiting their website. 

Review copy courtesy of Albatros Modelworks. 

Scott Hemsley offers a critique of this sheet where his research has found some errors.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has over 900 visits a day, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.