DXM Decals

1/72 JASDF F-2A/B Tac Meet and Anniversary Decals

Product # DXMD72002 for $24.99

Product Article by Jared Hooper on Aug 17 2011

 

In this, their second release in 1/72 Scale, DXM Decals (Double Excellent Model) has chosen the Japanese F-2 as their subject. The Decal sheet offers options for 9 different aircraft, 8 F-2As, and a single F-2B. All the single seat aircraft were specially painted for 2010 Tac Meet in Misawa, and the only twin seater is adorned with markings for the JASDF 50th Anniversary in 2004. As a special bonus, the decal sheet includes a very attractive turned silver metal pitot tube, a significant improvement over the kit item.

The F-2 is a development of the F-16 Fighting Falcon, but incorporates a large number of significant changes. These include a slightly longer fuselage, greater wing area, two piece forward canopy that has been strengthened against bird strikes, as well as many others. The F-2 is tasked mainly with anti-shipping role, and therefore is intended to be armed with the ASM-2 dedicated anti-shipping missile, as well as being painted with a very attractive maritime two tone blue camouflage scheme. 

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In 1/72 scale the F-2 is only available from Hasegawa, and it is an excellent kit. Hasegawa has in the standard “white box” range a kit with parts to make both the single seat “A” model, as well as the two seat “B” model. The kit understandably breaks down very similarly to the Hasegawa F-16 kits, but it benefits from having molds that were cut decades later. The fit and detail is much improved, and builds very easily into an accurate representation of the “Viper Zero.” Hasegawa has released numerous limited edition boxings of the kit to represent the special paint schemes that have been applied in JASDF service. Until now this has been the only way to acquire decals for many of these schemes in 1/72 scale. Hasegawa’s kit decals come with their own reputation, and it is not necessarily undeserved. I personally find that while they have improved significantly in recent years in usability and thinness, they still lag significantly behind aftermarket in color density and fidelity.

The newly released DXM decals are printed in Taiwan just like the previously released F-15J/DJ aggressor sheet in 1/72. Their F-15 sheet was already very well printed, but I have the impression that there has been improvement between these two releases. The decals are very thin, the color density is great and the individual artwork is very detailed. As with other aircraft in their JASDF, the F-2 is adorned with many stencils, and this portion takes up about 40% of the sheet space. These stencils are by far the best F-2 stencils available in 1/72, light years better than the Hasegawa kit items, and much better than the Platz sheet. Where appropriate, many of the stencils are grouped to ease the decaling process. Markings for the Following aircraft are included:

A Two different 3rd Squadron F-2As from Tac Meet 2010 with a large Samurai head on the tails

B Two different 6th Squadron F-2As from Tac Meet 2010 with a skull on the tail, and stripes behind the cockpit

C 8th Squadron F-2A from Tac Meet 2010 with small insignia behind the cockpit and intake

D Two different 3rd Squadron F-2As Tac Meet 2010 Winner with special tail markings

E 21st Squadron F-2B with special markings for the JASDF 50th Anniversary

F 8th Squadron F-2A with special full tail markings for the squadron’s 50th Anniversary

For this review I used the marking options for the 8th Squadron 50th Anniversary Aircraft. This aircraft has a large one piece decal that covers almost the entire vertical tail. The decals are very thin and conformed well to panel lines and fuselage shapes. Despite the thinness of the decals they were particularly strong, surviving a few ham fisted repositioning attempts and “foldovers” without tearing or difficulty. I did not even apply a gloss clear coat, instead just used the decals directly on the camouflage scheme. I found that they responded very well to Micro Set, settling down nicely into panel lines and rivets, and it was unnecessary to take the next step to Micro Sol.

There are, however, a few negative points in my review example. On the aircraft that I chose to model, the centerline fuel tank is painted black, and Japanese Script is applied to both sides in yellow. The decals provided were unfortunately not under printed with white, and once applied looked more like a very dark mustard brown than the appropriate vibrant yellow. After noticing that, I closely inspected all of the other light colored markings, and this seems to be repeated on some of the other, but not all, yellow markings. The affected decals are used only on marking options “C” and “F.” The second problem is that on my example the light blue color is printed slightly out of register. This is only noticeable on the aircraft side numbers, each having more of a blue drop shadow, rather than a border.

Other than these two noted problems, this is an excellent sheet, and I’m planning on using some of the other included markings on another F-2 model in the future.

At the present time DXM decals are available from Lucky Model and Hobby Easy mail order distributors, and should be available soon directly from DXM.

Thank you to DXM Decals and Power Modeling Magazine in Taiwan for the review sample.

Jared Hooper

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Photos and text © by Jared Hooper