Model Alliance AIRframe Decals | MA-32115: BAe Hawk in Worldwide Service

Reviewed by Michael Drechsler

The well-known Hawk became a great success for BAe Systems, who exported them to no less than 16 air forces all over the world. Thus when Revell released their large scale Hawk in 2011, it didn't take the modelling community long to look into the possibilities of the kit and ask for more and different marking options. Airframe Decals obviously heard the calls and released a sheet which is subject of this review.

The single A4-size sheet offers the modeller no less than 19 options:

Some of these options share their roundels, which effectively allows you to build 'only' 16 of the suggested schemes.

Interesting is the inclusion of a few Hawk 200 option. You may either want to wait for a future release of a Hawk 200 kit or conversion, or if you dare, try the conversion yourself. The same applies for a South Korean Mk 67, though it 'just' needs a new nose. Furthermore, for an accurate representation, all options but the Kenyan and the Indonesian planes require you to scratch a couple of small wing fences.

The decals have been printed by Fantasy Printshop, are in perfect register, thin, glossy and have little carrier film. I haven't used them yet, but I expect them to be unproblematic.

The instructions, printed on three sheets of glossy paper, do not match the high quality of the decals, though. They are clear enough to show you where to place each decal, but the painting guides do not proved very precise information. The illustrations give you a top, a bottom and one side view of each paint scheme, and especially the top and bottom views are very small. Comparing the illustrations with photos, I also have some doubts about their accuracy. I recommend checking photos of the actual plane.

Colours are identified by their F.S. or B.S. number and callouts are for Humbrol throughout. Where the companies offer the required shade, Xtracolour, Xtracrylics, Lifecolor, Tamiya and Gunze are also listed. But at least in case of the Dubai scheme, I have serious doubts about the colour callouts: Dark Earth and Light Brown over light blue. The Humbrol colours quoted are very similar in hue and lightness, while pictures of the actual aircraft suggest the lighter shade to be a sand colour.

There are a few things I noted: The serials for the South Korean Mk 67 are printed white, while in all pictures of South Korean Hawks I've seen so far, they are black.

The other lapse I was able to spot is the fin flash for the Omani Mk 103: it is missing laurel wreath, the crown and the fine details.

No maintenance stencils are provided on the sheet. As far as I was able to find pictures of the subjects, they all use black stencils, which means you will have to source them yourself – neither release of the Revell Hawk, nor the Kinetic Hawk 100 contain them.

I paid 34 € for my example. If you just want to build one specific aircraft, it is pretty expensive, but if you make the best of the sheet and build several of the schemes offered, you certainly get a lot of value. Offering a lot of different options, with high-viz trainer markings, modern grey overall, various desert schemes and variations of the classic SEA scheme, there should be something for everyone. Luckily both the Revell and the Kinetic kit come at a reasonable price.

In conclusion, with the restrictions mentioned above, I recommend this decal sheet to everyone who loves Hawks and/or is tired of doing the umpteenth plane in USAF or RAF markings.

© Michael Drechsler 2013

Related Content

This review was published on Thursday, December 05 2013; Last modified on Thursday, December 05 2013