F-35A/B Lightning II Worldwide Collection

Xtradecal, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Graham Carter

It is hard to believe that this amazing aeroplane has been around for almost twelve years and its sale to air forces around the world career in the last few years is demonstrated on this sheet. This substantial sheet offers decals for 21 aircraft from eleven different air forces and could probably be best looked at as a group or club purchase. A variety of variants are included, such as the joint Lockheed-Martin -Mitsubishi one for the Japanese, the ‘I’ for Israelis and the carrier-borne ‘B’ for the Royal Navy. Sealed in the familiar Xtradecal zip-lock bag.

There are seven A4 pages illustrating the decal placements in port/starboard views with small sketches to showing the undercarriage door placements for each choice, with a sheet of upper and lower generic views for these surfaces. A note indicates that airframe stencils will need to come from the donor kit. All aircraft are in the regular dark blackish-grey overall finish. The rear of the cover sheet has a listing of the Xtracryllix paints by FS numbers to help in the painting.

The A5 sheet is crammed with markings which fortunately have a pale blue background to ease the search for the desired images. Each image is printed in semi-gloss with minimal and what looks like very thin carrier film. In this era of all grey “whistle sticks”, this markings are almost all in pale grey with the exception of a special scheme in red and blue Turkish example. The tiny unit markings look just superb and very clear and there appears to be sufficient national markings for all aircraft.

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The complete list of examples is extracted from the Hannants site as I could not cope with typing them all myself. Here they are:- 

• F-35A Lightning II 99-8716, of 302nd TFS, 7th Air Wing, Japan Air Self-Defense Force, based at Hyakuri Air Base, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, 2020.

• F-35A Lightning II 09-8721, of 301st TFS, 7th Air Wing, Japan Air Self-Defense Force, based at Hyakuri Air Base, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, 2020.

• F-35A Lightning II A35-029, '29', of 75 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, based at RAAF Base Tindal, Australia, 2020.

• F-35A Lightning II A35-002, '02', of 2 OCU, Royal Australian Air Force, based at RAAF Base Williamtown, New South Wales, Australia, 2018.

• F-35A Lightning II A35-003, '03', of 3 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, based at RAAF Base Williamtown, New South Wales, Australia, 2019.

• F-35A Lightning II A35-035, '35', of 77 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, based at RAAF Base, Tindal, Australia, 2019.

• F-35A Lightning II 19-5530, 'L-001', of Royal Danish Air Force, flown from the Lockheed-Martin factory, NAS Fort Worth, Texas USA, 8 March, 2020.

• F-35A Lightning II 5146, of Royal Norweigan Air Force, flown from the Lockheed-Martin factory, NAS Fort Worth, Texas USA, November, 2020.

• F-35A Lightning II 5087, of Royal Norweigan Air Force, test flown from Luke AFB, Arizona, USA, 2015.

• F-35B Lightning II M.M 7451, '4-01', of Italian Navy, based at MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina, USA, June, 2021.

• F-35B Lightning II M.M 7453, '32-14', of Italian Navy, taking part in an Expeditionary Event on Pantelleria Island, Sicily, June, 2021.

• F-35A Lightning II MM7336/'32-05', of 32° Stormo "Armando Boetto", 13° Gruppo, Italian Air Force, Based at Amendola Air Base, Italy, 2017.

• F-35B Lightning II, 'BF-04', of F-35 Initial Ship Trials/ F-35 First Of Class Flight Trials operating aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth. October, 2018.

• F-35A Lightning II, 'F-001'/'OT' of Royal Netherlands Air Force, based at Leeuwarden Air Base, Netherlands, 2018.

• 15. F-35A Lightning II, 'F-001' of Royal Netherlands Air Force, based at Leeuwarden Air Base, Netherlands, 10 June, 2016.

• F-35A Lightning II, 'F-007' of Royal Netherlands Air Force, based at Leeuwarden Air Base, Netherlands, 2018.

• F-35I Adir, '907/5153F' of 116 'Southern Lions' Squadron, Israeli Air Force, based at Nevatim Air Base, Israel, 2016.

• F-35A Lightning II, '18001' of Republic of Korea Air Force, on trials at Luke AFB, Arizona, USA, 2018.

• F-35I Adir, '924' of 5061 'Manat' Squadron, Israeli Air Force Flight Testing Center, based at Tel-Nof Air Base, Israel, November, 2020.

• F-35A Lightning II, '18-0003' of Turkish Air Force, on trials at Luke AFB, Arizona, USA, 2018.

• F-35B Lightning II, ZM151/'017', of 617 Squadron, Royal Navy Lightning Force operating aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth. October, 2019.

Anyway, the quality of the decals and instructions is excellent and I recommend these to any modeller with an interest in this aircraft and air forces.

Thanks to Hannants for the review sample

Xtradecals are available online from Hannants' website

Review Text Copyright © 2022 by Graham Carter
This Page Created on 27 July, 2022
Last updated 27 July, 2022

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