Which Trumpeter Kit? - Hornet,Essex or Yorktown

I think they're all the same basic kit.
I'd get the Hornet, since you get some (but not all!) of the B-25s.

All three are good kits, But the hull for the Hornet is not anywhere close to being right ,the bow is way wrong. The Essex and Yorktown from what I have heard seem to be much better kits with the hull being right , I have not seen the latter two myself, thats just going from posts on 2 other sights. A person to ask wou;d be Jeff Herne, he would be able to give you a better Idea. Si Wellington

Here is a couple of links with reviews from Modelwarships.com. If you have seen these already I apologize.
Hornet
http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/reviews.html

Essex
http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/reviews.html

I didn't see one on Yorktown.
Good luck

The Trumpeteer Hornet is CV-8, a different class of carrier than the Essex, Yorktown & pending Franklin. As noted above there is an issue with the Hornet bow and hull side camber but still an excellent kit. The three versions of the Essex class represent the carrier class at different point of the war (early, mid & late). The kits do have changes for each time frame so it is not just a case of "slap a new name on the box". You cannot go wrong with any of them and can go wild with addons and the like whichever you choose. Which interests you the most?

There may be some confusion here, so I'll clarify this first...

Hornet is a Yorktown Class Carrier, from here on out called Hornet 1. Essex and Yorktown II (and Franklin coming) are all Essex Class carriers, very different from Hornet.

Hornet has some issues, most notably the bow and lower hull. It's possible to do a 1941-42 Yorktown I or Enterprise, but you'll need to make some changes. Nautilus Models does a conversion set, but I saw one up close and personal the other day and it's not worth the $50+ they asking for it..

The Essex and Yorktown II kits are both very nice, but again, it depends on WHAT carrier and what time period you want to portray. You can do most of the early Essex Class from the Essex kit, but you'll want the YoOrktown kit to a mid-late war Essex Class. Franklin will be a late war version, so once that's out, you'll be able to do any version of the Essex Class from 1943-1945, and a few that remained unchanged into 1950s.

These are, of course, all short hulled Essexes. There's no plans to do a long hull that I know of. This gives you a total of 11 ships you can model.

Hope this helps, if you need any other advice, post up or drop me an email.

Regards,

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

Shows ya what I know!
Better get back to my armor now!

J-Hulk...I know who to call when I have an armor question... don't worry! :-)

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

I've been researching specifics on the Essex class since I bought the Essex kit (20 years before actually, the Essex class is my favorite).....and liked it so well that I've bought the Yorktown as well. Most of my current research is from the book "the Essex Aircraft Carriers" by Andrew Faltum published by the Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, Baltimore Maryland.

The book goes into great detail about paint schemes, and even outfitting of each ship of the class with good dates for refits and a list of modifications. Basically.....the Yorktown kit and the Franklin kit should be exactly the same (historically speaking) with the exception of radar mast, and the number of radio masts, and paint scheme. Yorktown was cast in the late 1944 modification schedule and Franklin was in the same configuration when put out of action due to bomb damage.

drdoyo