This 1991 sheet is designed for the F-18A Hornet. In this scale there really is one kit that most will use and that is the Hasegawa offering. There are also 1/72 Hornets by Italeri, but they are not up to the detail level of the Hasegawa kit. Fortunately, it is readily available and even if you buy a Hasegawa F-18C kit, you'll get all the bits to do an A. Since this is a 16 year old sheet, it will not include all the latest upgrades so a standard Hasegawa kit should be just fine.

There are three units on this sheet and the ability to do 10 different aircraft.

From the top, there are two options for VMFA-531 'Grey Ghosts'.

For VMFA-323, you can do two aircraft, including the squadron commander's plane with the full color tail band. This aircraft uses the darker of the two number options.

The bulk of the options, six of them, are for VMFA-314 as they participated in Desert Storm and so have nose mission marks included. They also have some of the plainest markings of the three, but then VMFA-314 has always been low-key.  Here is a photo of the mission marks on the aircraft depicted, though the number '52' isn't on the decal as it is quite small.

The sheet includes enough insignia and common markings to do two of the aircraft on the sheet, but one of those has to be from VMFA-323. Of course, you can supplement things with kit decals. This sheet offers the nose and fin numbers in both black and dark grey, but makes the error of only providing one of each number. This means you have to be quite careful of which options you choose and there are not enough '1's to do aircraft 11 of VMFA-314 or enough '0's if you wish to do two lighter grey marked aircraft.

Regardless, it is still a fine sheet for the Hornet fan and well worth seeking out if you get the opportunity to find one.

Thought you might like to know what has been done.

September 2007