Essex carrier by Trumpeter

Trumpeter huh? How's the quality of the mouldings? had several of its kits given to me as gifts. Sad to learn that their moulding quality is a bit disappointing. Heard its from a new chineses company that copies from other kits. Good luck pal.

I think that in general Trumpeter has come a long way. While not without problems, their HORNET and ESSEX have drawn good reviews.

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/ships/cv/cv-09/350-trump/essex.htm

http://www.steelnavy.com/trumpeter_essex.htm

I've got both the Hornet and the Essex. They are both TOP OF THE LINE KITS> Trumpeter may have been a joke several years ago but they rank up there with Tamiya and Academy. Haven't bought any of their Tank kits but in my club some members have and they say the MIA2 is top notch. Fine scale did a review of the Trumpeter Hornet and Arizona...read those and you'll be real pleased with your purchase

I'm hoping someone can tell me I've made a mistake, but it appears in measuring the length of the flight deck, that it is about 8 to 12 feet too long. I've used a tape measure, and three different rulers, and they all measure the three sections within 1/16 of an inch of each other. For the record, the aft sections measured approx. 8 & 14 or 15/16", the mid-section 9 & 14 or 15/16" and the bow section measures 11 & 7/16 or 1/2".

Don't get too hung up on the length of the flight deck. It looks right. The hull is very close to 1/350 in length. The aft end of the flight deck does appear to be about 1/4 inch or 7 scale feet too long. But hey, it's the only one in town!

Check your data on the Essex Class...there were 2 variants, a short hull (the first 11 ships) and long hulled variants.

The kit is based directly off Tom's Modelworks resin Essex, and the model was researched and assistance provided by several extremely knowledge people, including Burl Burlingame, Bert McDowell, Tom Harrison, and others.

The only glitch in the Essex kit is the lack of turndown on the stern of the flight deck.

Both Essex and Hornet are very nice kits, regardless of what was coming out of Trumpeter prior to these two, they are listening to the those who know about these subjects.

In case folks aren't aware, here's a listing of some of their upcoming kits in 1/350.

CV-2 Lexington and CV-3 Saratoga
CV-10 Yorktown II (mid-war short hull Essex)
CV-17 Bunker Hill (late war short hull)
Liberty Ship
USS Nimitz

Regards,

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

I have been doing a bit more studying and have made something of a good news bad news finding. The bad news, the bow and stern of the flight deck should be rounded and they are not. The good news as it were, is that finding some way round the forward edge of the flight deck into a half-circle starting a the tiedown strip immediately in front of the deck lights across the bow area and ending at the current leading edge of the flight deck would do a pretty good job of fixing the bow. The 2 platforms on each side would need to be cut back to even with the top of ramp, but this would be a very small job. The top of the stern ramp would have to start about mid-way between the last two tiedown strips.