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Max Decals' 1/72 & 1/48 Antarctic Beavers

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

Continuing on in the Antarctic aviation series, the next set covers Beavers, and lots of them.  The 1/48 sheets are split into two sets, while the 1/72 sheet manages to fit them all onto one sheet.  There’s a total of eleven options presented here, covering Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile and the United States.  Being planes that spend lots of time on or over ice, it stands to reason that these would be brightly colored, and that they are.  The Australian planes are all painted overall orange, while the Argentinean and New Zealand Beavers are painted red.  The remainder (USAF and Chilean Air Force) are natural metal.

Starting with the Australian birds, you get markings for A95-201, A95-202 and A95-205.  A95-201 has an interesting fuselage roundel featuring a standing kangaroo.  A black cheatline runs the length of the fuselage, separated into four decals per side.  A small badge is on the tail.  This plane was part of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition in 1956-1957.  A95-202 is slightly different from the former, this time with dayglo red panels on the wings, fuselage and stabilizers.  The wings have the early style of concentric circle roundels while the fuselage has the now-current style with the jumping kangaroo.  The letters A.N.A.R.E. are in black on the upper wing and this plane dates from 1959-1960.  Finally, A95-205 is the only Australian Beaver on floats presented here.  Overall orange, it has the floats and struts painted in silver.  A small fin flash is on the tail, while the roundels are all the newer style.  A large A.N.A.R.E. badge is on the fuselage and this plane was used in 1962.

Moving onto the red Beavers, the first one is the New Zealand plane, NZ6001, from 1957-1958.  A black cheatline runs along the fuselage, pinstriped in black.  On the nose there’s white text saying ‘RNZAF Antarctic Flight’, while a script ‘Beaver’ is on the cheatline on the door.  The final text, also in script, is on the tail, saying ‘City of Auckland’.  The other red Beavers are all Argentinean and for the most part resemble one another.  P-03 and P-05 both have ‘Aeronautica Argentina’ on the fuselage sides in white, while their individual numbers are on the tail.  P-03 has a standard Antarctic flag on the tail while P-05 has an abbreviated one consisting of only the blue and white portions.  The third Argentinean plane has the more traditional blue/white/blue striped rudder and IAA-101 in white on the fuselage.  Underneath this is the phrase ‘Grupo Aeronaval Antartico’, also in white.

If natural metal finishes are your game, there’s four here for you.  Starting with the odd one out, the Chilean Air Force Beaver is on floats and has dayglo orange bands on the rear fuselage, cowling and wings.  A black cheatline runs from the cowling back to the orange band, with ‘Fuerza Area De Chile’ in white.  The rudder is painted blue with a white star, while Chilean ‘roundels’ are on the upper right and lower left wings.

The rest of the natural metal planes are all USAF and actually appear to have nothing to do with Antarctica.  The first is a straightforward Rescue bird out of Goodfellow AFB in Texas, with the usual black band outlined in yellow on the tail, a small unit emblem just ahead of the stabilizer, and standard stars & bars in the usual places.  The second Beaver is from the 78^th FBS, 81^st FBW based in Woodbridge, Suffolk in May of 1957.  This rather colorful plane has red checks on the cowling and the wing emblem ahead of the fuselage star & bar.  The final USAF example is highly polished natural metal with a gloss white fuselage top, a gloss black belly and dayglo red wing panels and rear fuselage.  This plane will definitely stand out.  Alaska Air Command’s emblem is on the tail, which makes sense as this plane was based at Elmendorf AFB in 1964.

All of the decals are well printed with opaque colors.  The registration is quite good for the most part, with the only problem being the RNZAF roundels on the 1/72 sheet.  The white border is slightly off on these.  Some careful trimming will removed the problem area, though.  No matter which way you cut it these are great decal sheets and offer some very interesting Beavers for your collection.

My thanks to Max Decals for the review sample.