Airways Graphics International Decals

F-84G USAF "Thunderbirds" Flight Demonstration Team, 1953-54

By Tom Cleaver

When I was but a wee lad, my father used to take me to see airplanes around Denver, where we lived. Often we would go to Stapleton Field (when it was far from the behemoth it is today) and watch the Frontier Air Lines DC-3s and the United Air Lines DC-6 Mainliners land and take off. We saw a lot of other airplanes there too, as manufacturers would send them to mile-high Denver for their 'hot and high' tests. (I well remember a jetless B-36 that sat there for four days till the temperatures came down sufficiently that it could leave.) We also used to go to Lowry Air Force Base for their Air Force Day shows. And I remember, on Air Force Day 1954, seeing four jets with great-looking red, white, and blue markings do amazing things in the sky over my head. They were the Thunderbirds, in their F-84G Thunderjets. I've seen the Thunderbirds in each of their aircraft incarnations from then to now, and those old Thunderjets are still, in my mind - in the memory of a boy who loved airplanes - the most impressive of them all.

Thus, when Jennings Heilig let me know that he was thinking of doing the 1953 and 1954 teams as the first military aircraft release from Airways Graphics International - which was formerly known as Liveries Unlimited - I was most encouraging in my response (actually I would have badgered him to death if necessary, but he was already sold on the idea).

The result, as you can see in the scans here, is terrific. Anyone who has ever used Liveries Unlimited Decals, or many of the decal sheets released in the past few years by Cutting Edge/Meteor, knows that Jennings is an excellent designer, and that he produces nothing that isn't top quality. These decals fit that pattern.

The instruction sheet provides four views of the lead ship from each of the first two seasons of the team. Interestingly, the pilot was Captain Jack Broughton, better known 14 years later as Col. Jack Broughton, top Thunderchief pilot in Southeast Asia, and later the author of the well-known book "Thud Ridge", one of the best accounts of the airwar over North Vietnam to see print. The instructions in how to apply these difficult to apply markings are comprehensive and useful (even if the author does have a penchant for $5 words, which - politely - he quickly translates for the rest of us). As the instructions say at the outset, "this is not an overnight project."

At present, Airways Graphics are not equipped to take individual e-mail orders. However, these sheets will be in hobby shops around the world soon. I predict anyone who has waited to build a 1/48 Tamiya F-84G until now will do one, and those who have already made one or two will make room on their shelves for another. With a little effort, this will be a stunner.

And for you grabbing up the new 1/72 Tamiya Thunderjet, there will soon be a sheet of these for you, too.

Highly recommended.