Now I realize that, for some reason, Japanese modern military kits are not a huge fan favorite, and it is a shame as not only do they have some great kits available, but a very wide variety of special schemes have been applied to many of these types of the last few years. Hopefully seeing nice decals like this new one from Hobby Collective/Platz will entice some of you to look into building some of these kits.

This particular sheet commemorates the 40th Anniversary of the JASDF, which, according to my reckoning, would have been 1994/5. The Japanese Self Defense act came into being in 1954, but I do not think that the JASDF got their first aircraft until 1955.  Anyway, there were many special scheme to commemorate this anniversary and one of them was applied to a JASDF SAR UH-60J. These aircraft are colorful anyway with their white upper and yellow lower surfaces.

Hobby Collective has taken into consideration that there are two semi-available kits of the UH-60J by Hasegawa and Fujimi. Typical of what we often find with kits, these are slightly different from each other, even though they depict the same aircraft. As a result, the decal sheet has provided all the markings to fit both kits. Those marked with an F are for the Fujimi kit and those marked H are for the Hasegawa version. The rest of the markings are pretty well universal.

The decals themselves are superbly printed by Cartograf, so you know that you are getting world quality decals. A comprehensive full color markings guide is provided with both Gunze and FS 595 color references.

In all, a superb sheet of a most impressive scheme and one that will surely liven up your helo collection.

February 2012

Thanks to http://www.platz-hobby.com/ for the review sheet. Visit them at their retail site at http://www.hobby-shop.jp/index.php?main_page=index&language=en

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