Siam Scale Decals

1/72 F-8F Bearcat  Royal Thai Air Force decal sheet

Product # SNN72012

Product Article by Steve Bamford on Oct 14 2003

 

 

 

Siam Scale is a decal company based in in the Far East and their decals focus mostly on Air Forces of the Far East, but they also do decals for aircraft of other Air Forces....such as Israel.  This 1/72 decal sheet focuses on three different F-8F's of the Royal Thai Air Force.  There are enough National markings included to build 2 of the 3 planes featured on this decal sheet.  

Aircraft #1 is a F-8F Bearcat #2300 finished in a bare metal paint scheme.  This plane flew with 23 Squadron out of Khokratiem Air Base.  Markings are colourful and include a brown bull on both sides of the fuselage behind the cockpit.  The tail is very noticeable with it's diagonal black and yellow stripes.  This Bearcat had a blue centreline fuel tank and a black anti-glare panel on the top side of the engine cowl. 

Aircraft #2 is a F-8F Bearcat #4331 finished in a bare metal paint scheme.  This plane flew with 43 Squadron out of Taklee Air Base.  Markings are eye catching and include a silhouette of a tradition warrior on both sides of the fuselage behind the cockpit.  The tail has what appears to be 3 missiles in flight.  This Bearcat had a bare metal centreline fuel tank and a black anti-glare panel on the top side of the engine cowl. 

Aircraft #3 is a F-8F Bearcat #211 finished in a overall blue scheme.  This plane flew with 12 Squadron out of Donmeaumg Air Base.

Markings for this Bearcat are colourful and include a big red cat's head with yellow wings on the sides of the fuselage behind the cockpit.  The tail has a yellow star.  This Bearcat had a blue centreline fuel tank. 

The decals are clearly printed.  They are a bit thicker than most decals, but they aren't overly thick and should settle down just fine....I don't see this as a problem.  Because these decals are from the Far East....the instruction sheet refers to one of the Far Eastern Brand of paints.  This shouldn't be much of an issue, but you will have to dig up a conversion chart of some sort to figure out the paint colours if your local hobby shop doesn't stock this brand of paint.  There are 5 different colours of paint mentioned on the instruction sheet.  

The instruction sheet doesn't fully show the right side of the fuselage.......so you'll have to do some educated guessing about markings on that side of the fuselage, but the top and bottom views show the right side of the fuselage probably has the same markings as the left side of the fuselage.  Go slow on the instructions to avoid making any mistakes.

Click on image below to see larger image

Instruction Sheet

All in all a nice set of decals of the Royal Thai Air Force F-8F's and I recommend these to anyone wanting to add a Royal Thai Air Force F-8F to their display case.

I'd like to thank Siam Scale Decals for sending me this review sample.

Steve

Photos and text © by Steve Bamford