Back date the Italeri 1/720 Forrestal to 1958 or so.

Hello Seasick,

I plan to do something of a Forrestal backdate, but not quite that far.

The Forrestal served as the platform for the original launch and recovery trials of the F-14 Tomcat in the early seventies. I'm planning to do the ship, at that time, showing a single F-14 on the deck with the orange wing and tail stripes, etc.

To go back to 1958, I know you would have to modify the island to show the tilting main mast. There was a trough running the depth of the island to hold the main mast that isn't on the Italeri kit. As designed, the mast could be pivitoted to port, down to the flight deck to allow the ship to pass under the Brooklyn Bridge and make it to the Navy yard.

There was more than 4 arresting cables then and the ship's armament was gun turrets too. As built the ship had its hull number painted on both the mound and stern of the flight deck.

The Navy History site has some early Forrestal photos available. What they don't have is much from the early seventies. Oh well...

Cheers, Mike

I believe a good starting point might be modifying a model of the Ranger. It is the only surviving member of the Forrestal class to retain the forward gun sponsons and thus the only one to include them in model form. The sponsons were found to be subject to damage in heavy Atlantic Ocean seas. Since the Ranger was a Pacific based carrier, she kept them. There was a kit (Revell?) that even included Furies and other old aircraft.

I think Subfixer may be referring to the old Revell kit, which appeared in about 1956 or 1958. (I'm at the office; Dr. Graham's book is a home.) It was one of the crown jewels of the Revell line for quite a while - the biggest warship kit the company made. My recollection is that it included Furies, Cutlasses, Skywarriors, and a couple of helicopters. Shortly thereafter Revell released its Essex-class carrier on the same (or nearly the same) scale; it had Cougars (better than the ones in the old Midway-class kit), Tigers, Skyhawks (I think) and helos. (The latter took a big step forward in detail over those of the Forrestal: the Essex's had separate rotors.) The two kits combined gave the modeler quite an assortment of 'fifties naval aircraft.

The Forrestal-class kit got reissued quite a few times; I remember clearly seeing it under the names Ranger and Saratoga, and there may have been an Independence as well.

Some years back I bought the latest incarnation as a Christmas present for my nephew. I was interested to see that the molds had been modified quite a bit to bring the ship more-or-less up to date. I don't recall all the changes, but I think the 5" gunhouses had been removed, and I'm pretty sure the airwing had been updated.

I can think of three other Forrestal-class kits. Aurora made one back in the fifties. (It was, of course, pretty basic - but from the standpoint of an elementary-school-aged modeler it had one big virtue over the Revell version: more airplanes. They were molded in off-white plastic, and came in a separate bag.) Airfix, oddly enough, did one fairly recently (i.e., within the past twenty years - I fear my age is showing) on 1/600 scale. I don't recall seeing that one in the flesh, but I think the reviews of it were sort of ho-hum. And of course Italeri has made several Forrestal-class kits that are still on the market.

The old Revell kit - if the offbeat scale isn't too objectionable - would be a good starting point for a fifties Forrestal. I imagine, though, that when the modified version came out the original molds were modified irreversibly. I suspect the original one is a high-priced collector's item by now.

so i think what the guys here are saying is
if you want to back date your model to the 50's
1 sand it smooth
2 take a couple of mm size pcs out of the hull so nothing fits right
3 use a pencil to remark the lines on the ship and you will have a 50's model
complete with 50's style detail
all kidding aside
the guns are going to be the hard part
you will have to make them from scratch
there was a post on back/forward dating a/c carriers here earlier this summer
i will dig it up it may help

cant dig it up fsm archived it sorry

I'm looking for a Ranger kit now from Italeri. As far as the parts for the modification. I have many 5inch/54 Mk42 guns left over from Skywave kits I have built. If I need to shrink them down a bit from 1/700 to 1/720 with emery boards. Its good that Ranger stayed in the Pacific.

I still have my brother's Revell Forrestall he built in 1964 sitting here on my shelf. It has the airwing with Furys, Tigers, Trackers, and the Sikorsly S5. It also has the guns and sponsons, 5 arresting cables, and the yellow deck markings with the numbers on both the stern and bow. It does not have the island feature for the mast however that was described for the mast to be lowered.

It also has about 1/8th inch of dust on it.

Scott

The mast was designed to be lowered as Mike stated above. But the mechanism was simple if I remember correctly, consisting of a hinge at the mast step that was just tilted over to port when the need arose.

USS Forrestal CVA-59

I'm getting closer to completing the preparations for my build. The Saratoga kit has the bow spontoons and I have one comming in the mail. I have most of the parts I need and have ordered the neceassary aircraft from White Ensign.