International Fouga Magister Selection

Max Decals, 1/72 scale

S u m m a r y :
Catalogue Number:	Max Decals Item No. 7223 - International Fouga Magister Selection
Scale:	1/72
Contents & Media:	Decals for ten different air arms and twenty-one individual aircraft in total.
Price:	Available on-line from Max Decals for €14.00 including Worldwide Postage, and Hannants for £16.63 plus postage.
Review Type:	First Look.
Advantages:	Superb production quality, well researched, and an attractive range of subject choices. Several anti-glare panels, anti-chafing tape and Day-Glo strips included.
Disadvantages:	No FS-595 or other colour system references.
Conclusions:	These very well produced decals should appeal to Fouga Magister and small air force fans, or those who like something a little different. Supplying anti-glare, anti-chafing tape and Day-Glo strips is a nice touch. I have found Max Decals to be very good in the past, and have actually used markings from this set. I happily recommend them.

Reviewed by Mark Davies

HyperScale is proudly sponsored by Squadron.com

Background

This set will obviously appeal to Fouga Magister modellers who would like to finish their kit in something a bit different to the kit markings, or fans of small air forces.

There are currently three Magister kits in 1/72-scale. I have built the Airfix and Heller kits; both are very nice, but I slightly favour Heller's. Valom has recently released their limited-run kit with resin and PE details. I have yet to see one, but am familiar with Valom kits, and have read that it has the expected resin and PE details; it seems it will be somewhat demanding and fiddly to build. Both the Heller and Airfix kits by comparison almost fall together with minimal effort required. However, MPM have announced what looks to be a quite spectacular Magister kit in the One True Scale. Based on test shots, I think that it looks like it will supersede all previous offerings, plus it includes a CM.175 Zephyr option; check this link out.

The Decals

The sheet reviewed here comes in an A5-sized zip-lock bag with folded A4 pages for instructions.

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Thumbnail panels:

These are nicely printed in colour and have quite useful notes describing each scheme, including specific notes relevant to the aircraft being modelled; suggesting good research.

For example, some of the Finish aircraft featured were licence-built by Valmet, and these have slightly wider chord ailerons than Fouga-built Magisters. The instructions identify which aircraft this applies to and how to modify the kit parts. It also identifies aircraft that used anti-chafing tape and supplies decals to simulate this where applicable, along with six anti-glare panels, stenciling and Day-Glo strips for the Finish options.

Colour call-outs are only generic, with no cross-reference to FS-595, or other colour systems or paint ranges. The range and nature of some of the third-world schemes featured may make this impracticable. Personally, I think the colour guides are sufficient as is, and individuals can always conduct additional research.

Colour Schemes

The air arms of ten countries are provided for, several with more than one individual aircraft choice as indicated in brackets below:

• Irish Air Corps (6),

• Togo,

• Katanga,

• Lebanon,

• Algeria,

• Morocco (2),

• Senegal,

• Cameroon,

• Finland (6), and

• Bangladesh.

The decals are very crisply printed with good colour density. As it happens, I have prior practical experience with Max Decals after a French modelling friend mailed me the Irish Air Corps decals featured in this set to finish my Heller Magister (I only had the Irish markings to use, not the anti glare and anti-chafing tape decals). My build article can be viewed here on HyperScale from May 2007.  I can report that the Max Decals worked very well (see below).

Magister Reference

Max Decals are linking a book special to the release for this decal sheet for a limited time. The book looks to be a great Magister reference called "Fouga Magister - An Irish Perspective" for €15.00; check it out by clicking here.

These very well produced decals should appeal to Fouga Magister and small air force fans, or those who simply like something a little different. Supplying anti-glare, anti-chafing tape and Day-Glo strips is a nice touch.

The lack of a reference to an established colour system like FS-595 is to some extent understandable given the nature of some of the third-world subjects, but could probably have been included in other cases. However, I feel that this is not a major concern. 

I have found Max Decals to be very good in the past, and have actually used markings from this set. I happily recommend them.

I can see I will need to build at least a third Magister using these decals once the new-tool MPM kit is released!

Thanks to Max Decals for these samples.

Text and Images Copyright © 2013 by Mark Davies
Page Created 3 February, 2014
Last updated 4 February, 2014

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