REVELL-U.S.S.SARATOGA-What a revolting Development this is!!

CV-60 – USS Saratoga – Booklet of General Plans, 1993, Forestal Class, SLEP

https://www.hnsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/cv60.pdf

Hi-Surface _Line:

    It has been so long since I built a REVELL navy ship I forgot about the age of some of those molds. Remember, on their AKA and APA and other support ship kits I scratch build everything above the hull. The last carrier I built was the old LINDBERG kit of a W W 2 Kit . I think it was the " Wasp", I have REVELL'S Hornet + 2, but only because I was a Docent on the ship when she opened as a Museum.

    I think the same situation exists here as in the " Charles De Gaulle" the molds are long in the tooth. The island on the aforementioned French ship was an aberration of faulty parts. Heller presses a mold to far sometimes I am sure. But, I had thought the "Sara" was a newer, better molding. I will add in closing the little birds are fairly nice for the scale.

Hi;

 1/542

Rick,

I miss John. He was a great friend of mine.  I also remember he referenced that book a lot.  The problem with using that as a reference is that it was published in the late 1980s.  Revell retooled those Forrestal class carriers in the 1990s, making many changes.  The earlier kits were the better in many ways.

Bill

Thanks.  I only checked "Remembering Revell Model kits" by Dr Thomas Graham for the original date, since that was what Prof Tilley used to quote.  :-)

Rick

Surface_Line,

Revell originally released the Forrestal class in the late 1950s-early 1960s. They included the 5" gun armament of 8 mounts at the four corners.  They also featured decent attempts at the original islands. Other details were for the original configurations of these ships.

Revell then remolded the Forrestal and Saratoga to their modernized and final configurations, although they are not as accurate as the original versions.  There is a detailed list of the deficiencies in the Detail & Scale book on Forrestal.

Bill

GMorrison

The box art with her in some arabic port rocked, too.

Bill

Magnificent box art.  I wonder if that planted the seed that wound up with me in the Navy recruiter's office, 12 years later.

The box art with her in some arabic port rocked, too.

Bill

Come on, TB.  That Revell Saratoga kitdates back to when the ship was brand new in 1961.  And even then it was a copy of the Forrestal kit that hadbeen released in 1958.

The aircraft were replaced in the 80s or so.  The original ones were blobs, barely identifiable as F7U, FJ and F11F types.  The later ones (F-14, A-6 et al) were pretty nice, I thought.

All I can say is that some of us who are of even older model years would be pretty bad, compared to the best of the best that were made in the past 20-30 years.

If it's the Forrestal class 1/540 one, I bought a glue bomb for $ 5 and used the lower hull to convert the very good Revell Midway into a full hull.

Gave the Tomcats away to someone who wanted a full deck of jets

Bill

which scale, 1/542 or 1/720?

http://www.modelerjoe.net/shipmodellist.html#RevellSara