Having built a couple of escort carriers from the WW2 period, I was hankering after building a "proper" carrier. Even at my favoured 1/144 scale the large Fleet carriers would have been to big for convenient storage and transport. The Light Fleet carriers of this class were a more suitable size and still had that unmistakable RN style.
The model is now more or less complete and has just had its first run on the local canal. It is about 48 inches (1.2m) in length and weighs in at around 12 pounds (5.5kg) so launching and recovery are quite manageable. Powered by a single 55turn 500 type motor and a 6 Volt 10AH battery, it has way over scale speed and more than adequate duration. Handling was good, I had thought about adding a discrete bow thruster but suspect that it really isn't needed for general sailing.
The aircraft proved to be the most difficult part of this models construction. I really wanted to depict the model in the Korean War period so Hawker Sea Furies were needed. I had started to collect plastic kits of Hawker Tempest models (from which the Fury was developed) but was not looking forward their conversion. Then a Japanese kit manufacturer came to my rescue when they issued 1/144 kits of the Sea Fury. The only problem being that these kits were sold in randomly packed boxes of 10 kits along with two other carrier aircraft types. I ordered 3 boxes hoping for 10 Fury kits but was lucky to end up with 11! A fair bit of repainting was still needed to produce a homogeneous set of RN aircraft. Three USN Marine Corsairs were added as they also served in the Korean War and touch of "cross deck" operation did not seem unrealistic.
Quite a few problems to solve whilst building this model but the sight of it sailing, especially when I learn how to operate the "planeguard" destroyer at the same time, is a great reward. It's also nice that half of the planes will spin their propellers when sailing into a breeze!
Glynn Guest