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1:350 Trumpeter Hornet

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  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 12:59 PM
I haven't built (or bought) the kit, but on the basis of all the reviews it certainly looks like an outstanding one. I do, however, want to take the liberty of pointing out one odd error in it. I've hesitated to mention this in the context of finished models built from the kit, because the goof would be difficult to fix on a completed model. But fixing it in advance should be pretty simple.

I'm basing this on the Navy "Booklet of General Plans" for the class leader, the Yorktown. (Copies are available from The Floating Drydock.) They show a curious feature of the stack. At the front of it, on the island platform that forms its base, is an area marked "Void." Photos showing the front of the stack are kind of scarce, but if you find one taken from the right angle it's obvious that there's a big gap, at least ten feet wide, running down the front of the stack from the cap to the base. (In some photos it looks like a black stripe painted on the front of the stack.) I've never seen an explanation of what this opening is for; I think it may have been a simple means of maintaining air circulation around the funnel uptakes.

I should emphasize that I don't have a photo of the Hornet in front of me that shows this strange gap. But there's no question whatever that the Enterprise and Yorktown had it. (It's quite prominent in the photos of the wreck of the Yorktown in Robert Ballard's book, Return to Midway.) All the kit manufacturers seem to have missed it. The only models I've seen that show it are those two superb 1/72 Enterprises at Pensacola and Oshkosh.

To reproduce the gap on an in-progress model would be simple: just shave back the sides of the stack at the front. It might be appropriate to box in the resulting space with sheet styrene; that would take ten or fifteen minutes.

Incidentally, several aftermarket manufacturers have produced amazing sets of photo-etched parts for this kit. The Gold Medal Models set includes a 1/350 Jimmy Doolittle (complete with bald head, presumably), and White Ensign - if you can believe this - offers interior detail parts for the aircraft. It looks to me like a person could spend the rest of his or her life working on that kit.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    February 2005
1:350 Trumpeter Hornet
Posted by cromejob on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 12:14 PM
I just finished my USS Antietam CG54 Monday night and cracked open my Hornet Kit I got last year and the Eduard photo etch kit for it. I am absolutely amazed. The quality of the kit is right up there with what I have come to expect from Tamyia. I usually get the gold metal photo etch so this is my first expierence with Eduards product and they look excellent also except for the lack of bow and stern railings for the hanger deck but the directions sheets that come with them by far make up for that. This is my first Trumpeter Kit I have worked on, I have alot on the shelf in box but this is the first one to assemble. I've read the reviews for the kit, but if anyone has any tips please let me know.
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