I have always been fascinated by carriers, and as a kid, had built a few...badly...and used them as toys

I have always wanted to revisit building one, especially now that my skills are vastly improved

I picked up the Trumpeter 1/350 Nimitz and some photoetch for it, but felt I needed a quicker/easier build to help step myself up to that one

At any rate the Acadamey 1/800 kit was fairly cheap at hobby lobby (40% off of $38)

In my fervor to start I went straight ahead without doing any research but as I started to look at ref pics for weathering, I notice the kit art does not match the kit contents regarding the tower/bridge

The art has a lot of white domes not present in the kit. I guess this kit is meant to depict an older version while the art suggest an 80s version?

I also notice the instructions had me place the 63 in a different spot than many of the reference photos I found which has the numbers over the silver vent areas

Plus the kit includes some F-18s which I am guessing are not appropriate for the era it represents and it has you painting aircraft in low vis schemes

I am kind of torn which route to go. I kind of like the High vis and I think it would be more appropriate for the era I suspect the kit is meant to represent
the aircraft are tiny, and there are no decals beyond what looks like the high vis star and stripes

at any rate, still some weathering to do, and have to make a decision on high vis vs low vis....

urumomo said:

https://www.seaforces.org/usnships/cv/CV-63-USS-Kitty-Hawk-3.htm

Click to expand...

Thanks looking through that now

seems like the box art depicts it in the 90;s while that mast/radar tower more matches that of the 70s through at the latest early 80's

I think I will stick with high vis colors for the aircraft and maybe just leave off the F-18s.

I kind of prefer that look anyway

Or i might do half the aircraft in low vis and the other half in high vis and that way I can swap them out or rotate them for a change every so often

Looks great, be sure and post a "finished" photo or two. Do we ever really finish a model for do we just get tired of working on it!
Larry

I have to clean up some of the dust, and paper towel lint, but I have started weathering the deck. Based on ref pictures I was looking at the runway marking seem to be almost completely worn away right around the cables in the landing zone. Trying to replicate that look

also tried fading some of the other markings as well

Got some additional F-14s done as well as a Hawkeye modified to be in a folded wing position, an A-7 in folded wing position, plus some additional F-4s
Also testing out the look for the deck vehicles

Nice work on this. i haven't built a carrier model since I was a kid when I built the WW II era USS Enterprise. I like that you weathered the deck. Looks just like the photo of the real thing.

I do like what you're doing. A lot.

looking very realistic especially with the birds on the deck. Keep em coming!

Thanks everyone

Got a little more detail work done. Added some of the missing stuff. Also changed up the deck arrangement to see how it might look for landings instead of take offs