Mike Grant has been expanding his line of waterslide decals and has taken subjects from his very popular ALPS printed 1/72 sheets to make up this new set for the 1/48 Fi-156 'Storch'. These decals are standard waterslide decals and superbly printed by Microscale. The modeling world hasn't exactly been overwhelmed with kits of this aircraft in any scale, but ESCI did produce a fairly nice one that has been somewhat difficult to find in the last few years. To my understanding, as I've not seen this kit, Italeri has reissued the ESCI kit as part of its on-going marketing plan to reissue a number of the older ESCI molds via the owner of these molds; AMT/ERTL.

This sheet has a wide variety of very nice schemes on it. All the versions on the sheet are the Fi-156C version.

First up is a Bulgarian AF version. The colors are not 100%, but the supposition is that it is RLM 71 over RLM 76. The entire cowling is yellow as is the rudder.

Next is a desert scheme RLM 79 over RLM 76, but I think it may well be RLM 65 as these aircraft were not painted in a desert scheme from the factory so you'll find the standard scheme of RLM 70/71/65 under the tan. It has a white fuselage band and there is an overall mottling using the underside color. This is a captured version with the British markings roughly applied.

The third aircraft is a very fetching red and yellow painted Swiss version. If one wants to do this in the later markings with the large red/white neutrality bands, those are also shown.

The final set of markings is a standard Luftwaffe aircraft used as a hack for a night fighter unit. It is in RLM 70/71/65, the standard scheme for bombers and utility aircraft right up until near the end of the war.

The sheet is first rate in terms of printing and  so are the full-color instructions.

October 2005

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