Balkan Models: Women pilots in Great Patriotic War 1/72 decal set

[TISO]

Slovene company Balkan Models just released a small set of 4 Yak-1's under the title "Women pilots in Great Patriotic War"
Decals are provided for the following aicraft:
Jak-1b, White 23, 296th IAP, 2nd. Lt.  Litvak Lidiya Vladimirovna, 1943
Jak-1, Yellow 44, 296th IAP, Capt. Budanova Ekaterina Vasilyevna, Autumn 1942
Jak-1, Red 32, 296th IAP, 2nd. Lt. Litvak Lidiya Vladimirovna, 1942
Jak-1, White 42, 586th IAP, 2nd. Lt. Homyakova Valeriya Ivanovna, Spring 1942

It is their low cost "Winglet series" decal set which basicly means that you get decals and only one colour side profile (not entire camo scheme) with FS, AKAN and Gunze colours codes as their interpretation (as per Primo? Kra?na i.e. main guy after the company) "for experianced modellers only" is on purpose "here you have decals now go and learn to reserch on your own" - this also keeps costs of the set down. In conversation with Primo? he mentioned that one side colour profile is well researched.
Primo? also mentioned that he did lots of research from pic's on size and shape of the numbers as he was not satisfied when comparing pic's of acctual planes with other decal sets. So if someone thinks that numbers are too small he assured me they are not and yellow 44 on Budyanova's Yak is of the correct shape as per photos. What i find good is that they do provide stars for all 4 aircraft on the set so if plane stars is all you need i reccomend this set as well.

While i haven't tried this set but colours look OK to me and on the paper colour consistency also looks OK and they have thin carrier film.  I tried some of their other decals and I was satisfied with them.



This company is primarily orientated towards former Yugoslavian markets which basicly means lots Yugoslav partisan aircraft (Spits and Hurries), after WW2 Yugoslav airforce (MiG-21's of shapes and sizes, Sabres and Thunderjets and their generic markings) and airforces of the states formed after brakeup of YU, but recently they also started to print decals outside of their primary scope.

Their catalogue for this trimester with list of their distributers at the end:
http://www.balkanmodels.si/REDWINGS/SEPOKT2012/RW%20SEP_DEC%202012.pdf

[learstang]

Thank you very much for the information, Tiso!  I've always wanted to do a model of one of Lidiya (or Liliya) Litvak's Yak-1's.

Regards,

Jason

[KL]

Hi TISO,
Thanks for posting!  Interesting decals and model (exotic Bloudek XV ? Lojze)

http://www.balkanmodels.si/decals.html
http://www.balkanmodels.si/models.html

This company is primarily orientated towards former Yugoslavian markets which basicly means lots Yugoslav partisan aircraft (Spits and Hurries),...

For those who like planes with red stars, a nice seletion of Yugoslav partisan Spitfires and Hurricanes at:
http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=ForumsPro&file=viewtopic&t=15329&finish=15&start=15

[learstang]

Nice photographs, Konstantin.  Thank you for posting them!

Regards,

Jason

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Tiso,
nice subjects, I like the sheet on Spitfires and on Su-25 in particular.
Do you think that they will make decals for Yugoslav Il-2s and Yaks too?
Regards
Massimo

[learstang]

That'd be nice if they did one for the postwar Shturmovik in the Belgrade Museum.  I know Lift Here decals did this particular aeroplane, but I'm not sure it's available anymore.

Regards,

Jason

[TISO]

Hi Tiso,
nice subjects, I like the sheet on Spitfires and on Su-25 in particular.
Do you think that they will make decals for Yugoslav Il-2s and Yaks too?
Regards
Massimo

Well i really don't know. Lift-Here is producung number of sets with Yak's and I do know that both companies do take care from intruding too much into eachoder's territory (subjects) since they both primaraly target the same market (former YU).
As for Yugoslav Il's i did work with someone that served on Il's and Peshkas as gunner at the end of their service in YuAF and he informed me that all models are way too cleanly painted to be realistic (as per his words paint was applied with rags not brushes or spraygun).