Red Pegasus Decals | AT6/SNJ Mystical Power #21 1990-2009
Reviewed by Kevin Futter
Red Pegasus Decals specialises in providing decals for colourful racing aircraft, as well as other unique or interesting civil schemes. With the release of Kittyhawk's 1/32 T-6 kit, Red Pegasus has responded with a trio of new decal sheets for Texan racers. This particular set is entitled "AT6/SNJ Mystical Power #21 1990-2009", and features a Texan called "Mystical Power".
The decals ship in a resealable clear plastic bag, with a single A4 sheet featuring historical data and a painting guide. There is also an smaller sheet entitled "Tips for Applying ALPS Decals".
As noted above, the decals themselves are ALPS-printed on continuous decal film, and exhibit good colour density and registration:
My scanner hasn't done the silver stripes justice, as they're very nicely done, and quite convincing.
You will need to carefully cut around each design before applying it to the model, to minimise visible carrier film.
The painting guide is a very simple affair, and not especially clear or detailed:
Strangely, the decal sheet doesn't contain the WW2-style US markings shown on the included photo and profile drawing. This is disappointing, as they're not featured in the kit decals either, so will have to be sourced from a third party. I can only imagine that this decision has been made to keep costs down by focussing on those aspects of the livery that an ALPS printer does well - metallic colours (silver stripes and gold lettering) and white. US national markings of the required style can be obtained from innumerable sources, but it's still a nuisance to be left with an incomplete set of decals.
The sheet also features two sets of sponsor listings, labelled "early" and "late". You're on your own however when it comes to determining what shade of blue to paint the aircraft, as none are mentioned. A careful study of photographs on the Internet may be of assistance in this regard, but it would have been preferable for the instructions to offer at least a viable suggestion.
Conclusion
While Kittyhawk's Texan kit comes with no less than eight options, they are all warbirds, so the release of some racer options by Red Pegasus is welcome. This particular scheme is arguably not as colourful as some, but should make for a striking finished model nonetheless. The markings omissions and lack of colour suggestions are the only reservations I have about this otherwise fine set.
Thanks to Red Pegasus Decals for the review sample.
© Kevin Futter 2014
This review was published on Friday, March 14 2014; Last modified on Friday, March 14 2014