Aeromarine 39B A.606 and A.608 United States Navy

These are 1/72 scale decals covering two historic aircraft — Aeromarine 39B, BuNo A.606 and BuNo A.608 — both of the United States Navy, representing one of the most consequential moments in the history of naval aviation.

On 26 October 1922, Lieutenant Commander Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier piloted A.606 aboard the USS Langley (CV-1) — making the first ever arrested landing on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. That single flight transformed naval warfare forever. Langley, converted from the collier USS Jupiter and commissioned as America's first aircraft carrier just months earlier, was the proving ground on which the U.S. Navy would develop the carrier aviation doctrine, techniques, and equipment that would define sea power for the rest of the 20th century. The landing by Lt. Cdr. Chevalier in A.606 was the moment it all began.

The Aeromarine 39B was a two-seat biplane trainer and utility aircraft widely used by the U.S. Navy in the early 1920s — a docile, reliable machine well suited to the experimental and often dangerous work of developing carrier landing procedures from scratch. There were no established techniques, no proven arresting gear systems, and no accumulated wisdom to draw on; Chevalier and his fellow naval aviators were inventing carrier aviation as they went, at considerable personal risk.

This decal set allows you to model both A.606 — the aircraft that made history — and its companion A.608, together representing the dawn of U.S. carrier aviation. Please allow some time for decal printing and shipping.