British Remove Before Flight Tags by Everett McEwan

Most parked military aircraft are covered with Remove Before Flight tags, and adding them to your model can really add interest. There are more than one style of tags depending on what nation it is, but for this article we will be making the
kind used by the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.

Click on images below to see larger images

First go out to the store and get red construction paper and white paper labels, then make sure you have these standard modeling tools and supplies, electronics wire, super glue, tweezers, needle nose pliers, scissors, hand drill and #11 blade exacto knife. Before you begin, find some good pictures of the RBF tags hanging on the real thing so you know where to place them.

Click on images below to see larger images

Start by cutting strips of the red paper to the aproxement width, then cut the length twice as long as the final tag will be. Cut a small length of wire and fold the red paper strip in half with the wire placed in the center. Then tightly twist the two lengths of wire together with the needle nose pliers. The next step is to glue the two pieces of paper together with the super glue. After that, cut a very thin strip off of the labels, and remove the backing (you may need to use a fresh #11 blade to do so) and then wrap it around the tag at an angle (see picture). Cut the end of the label but leave a little bit of excess and coat the tag in super glue, this is because the white label is not held on by much and might come off otherwise. After the glue is dry, cut the edges off the tag to clean it up. This is the basic process for each tag, make as many as you need with this method.

After making up all of your tags it is time to attach them to your model. Again start by checking reference photos, noting how many will be needed and where to place them. After figuring out where they go, drill a very small hole for the wire to be placed into. Then place a small drop of supper glue onto the area of the hole and insert the tag's wire after bending the top of the wire at a right angle. Repeat for the rest of the tags and your done!

This process could also be used to create American style tags, using a color printer to print white lettering (Remove Before Flight) onto the red construction paper and then making into tags. I have yet to try this and the lettering may be unreadable at such a small size, but could be better than nothing. Also remember that RBF tags are often frayed and faded from years of use so faint unreadable lettering may be just fine.