You can see below the photos of my CVN-75 from Pitroad/Trumpeter. I like building postwar ships (mainly U.S.) in 1/700 scale. I wrote some comments on how i built this kit and hope you like it.
For many years the only kits available for the Nimitz class carriers were the old Italeri/Revell ones. Those kits need too much work to become decent models. Most of us were wishing for something better and here it is !
The Trumpeter/Pitroad kit has just about everything needed to make a good model straight from the box without having to use any scratchbuilding or modifying technique like we had to with the older kits.
The kits and aftermarket parts used in my build are:
1) Trumpeter/Pitroad 1/700 CVN-72 USS Abraham Lincoln kit.
2) 1x Trumpeter/Pitroad 1/700 F-14 aircraft set.
3) 2x Trumpeter/Pitroad 1/700 F/A-18 aircraft sets.
4) GMM 700-33 NIMITZ class PE set
5) GMM 700-4D USN Supercarrier Decals.
6) Starfighter decals 700-46 Carrier Air Wing 3 2004- 05, USS Truman CVN-75 "Give ‘em Hell, Harry"
7) Tom's Modeworks 1/700 723 FIGURES set
8) Jag RAM set
The Trumpeter kit.
The kit is so much more complex and detailed when compared to a Italeri/Revell Nimitz class that I had to subdivide the work in 3 parts in order to accelerate the building process. In fact it was like building three different kits at once. So the 3 parts were
a) the hangar deck,
b) the Island,
c) the rest of the ship.
a) Hangar deck was not that difficult to construct but its a pity that after closing it very few things are visible and your work cannot be seen. I placed some 20 aircraft inside so it would have a busy look and around 100 1/700 figures. The kit gives you many options. You can have closed or open hangar doors and the same goes for the safety doors that seal the hangar deck in 3 areas in case of fire. In fact some of the extra parts could be used for scratchbuilt hangars on other carriers.
b) The island of the kit is very impressive when finished especially when compared to the one of an Italeri/Revell kit. It is very easy to construct and is correct for CVN-72 but since the ship represented was CVN-75 I had to replace several radomes with different ones that would be correct for the respective ship. The only parts that aren't good and need to be replaced in case you build the kit as CVN-72 are the 4 OE-82s which are out of scale. For those I used Pitroad OE-82 antennas from the spare parts box .
c) Building the rest of the ship presents no real problems. It is complete with the exception of the Belknap mast. My intention was to build the ship as CVN-75 2007 configuration and for this reason I substituted 1 Sea Sparrow launcher and 1 Phallanx with RAM launchers which look awesome. Later after buying the Starfighter decal set for the aircraft I decided to do the ship as it appeared in 2005 but the RAM launchers looked so good that I decided not to replace them. The Sea Sparrow launchers were substituted with Pitroad ones because I use those on all my carriers and didn't want CVN-75 to look any different in this respect. The flightdeck after receiving the Trumpeter decals was weathered and improved with the use of the GMM decal set. This added very much to the final appearence and especially the Flight Deck Electrical Power Hatch striping make the Flight Deck look superb.The Number 75 was placed on the flight deck. GMM decals were also used on the Island and the weapon sponsons(warning circles).
Adding PE to the kit.
I had decided not to wait for the release of the new GMM pe set so I started building the kit using the older GMM 720-11 USN SUPERCARRIERS PE set which is not bad at all. But late in the construction the new set was released. When I saw it I knew I had to get this. Initially I thought I would use only the nets for the flight deck and jet blast deflector rams but I also used The HF/DFs and some other small stuff that made the model look like it wasn't 1/700. Unfortunately this set came late in my build but most of the parts will be used on other carriers.
Final verdict on the Trumpeter/Pitroad kit.
The kit is very good with the exception of some minor problems such as a dissapointing crane, the lack of a Belknap mast and the kit's PE which needs replacement by the much better GMM set.
Building the airwing.
I like to place as many aircraft as possible on my U.S. carriers. This time I made almost 70 aircraft for the CVW-3. Simply building the aicraft isn't just enough for me. The new decal sets from Starfighter decals are what I always wanted to see.The process of applying these decals is really demanding because you have to do the same thing over and over again and you have to cut each of the decals so initially you will not be able to finish more than 4 aircraft in an hour. My personnal best is 6 aircraft in an hour. Another area that aircraft need improvement is their weapons.At least some of the aircraft on the carrier should be armed. There is no aftermarket set for 1/700 weapons (unfortunately) so you have to get these from Pitroad aircraft sets:
S-13 USN Jet Aircrafts (F-14,FA-18,etc.) will give you Phoenix missiles.
S-21 1/700 Modern US Military Aircraft Set(1) will give you AMRAAM, SIDEWINDER, MAVERICK and CBU-89.
M-09 USSR Sub ECHO II & Aircraft will give you LANTIRN and MERs.
After using both Starfighter decals and weapons the aircraft look like they are ready to embark on the carrier and ready for action. So give 'em hell Harry.
Some closeup photos of CVW-3 onboard CVN-75.
