Max Decals

Gloster Gladiator

Stock Number: 4812

Reviewed By Nat Richards, #13182

MSRP: $13.00 USD

For those of you who are building either the new Roden Gloster Gladiator kit or even the older but still quite buildable Lindberg/Life Like/Impact Gladiator kits, finding alternative markings has been a challenge.

The new sheet from and Irish company called Max Decals goes a long way to filling this void.  The sheet of well printed, well registered, decals offers markings for 7 different aircraft – 4 RAF, 2 Portuguese Air Force and 1 Belgian Air Force.  Now come on and admit it, you probably didn’t know that the Portuguese Air Force operated Gloster Gladiators did you?

Being a Gladiator junkie, this appearance of this sheet in my local hobby shop certainly made my month!

The sheet will actually generate enough decals to do three aircraft (one for each Air Force), and using the RAF Roundels from the kit will allow you to use the other RAF markings.

The seven sets of markings include:

• RAF Gladiator Mk I, Serial K7986 of 78 Squadron - circa 1938.  The scheme on this aircraft, as will the other three RAF machines is bare metal forward fuselage and aluminum dope fabric on everything else.

• RAF Gladiator Mk I, Serial K7984 of 3(F) Squadron – This machine carries a special set of markings for the 1938 Air Defense Exercises.

• RAF Gladiator Mk I, Serial K7960 of 3(F) Squadron – Circa 1938 as flown by Squadron Leader Lester.

• RAF Gladiator Mk I, Serial K7903 of 80 Squadron – This machine was stationed in Egypt circa 1938.

• Belgian Air Force Mk I, Serial G 23 of 1 Escradrille (Les Cometes) – This machine has dark green upper surfaces and aluminum doped under surfaces.  This unit’s squadron emblem was a red comet and tail that arcs over the national roundel on the fuselage sides.

• Portuguese Air Force Mk I, Serial 464 of Esquadrilha Nr. 2 – This machine has dark green upper surfaces and medium blue undersides of wing and horizontal stabilizers and features that units “Boxing Bee” emblem.

• Portuguese Air Force Mk I, Serial 467 of Esquadrilha Nr. 1 – This machine has dark green upper surfaces and medium blue undersides of wing and horizontal stabilizers and features the distinctive greyhound dog squadron insignia.

The price of the decal sheet is a little high at $13.00, but as the sheet will decal at least three models, the price is acceptable.  The overall quality of the decals is excellent and I hope that the nice people at Max will do more sheets to cover the other nations, such as Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Greece and Egypt, that all operated the Gladiator.

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