Kit: No. JFL 001
Scale: 1/700
Manufacturer: Jim Shirley Productions, P.O. Box 951108, Lake Mary, FL 32795-1108, fax 407-682-3830
Price: $135
Comments: Cast resin, 121 parts (35 white metal, 18 photoetched).
The Oriskany was the last Essex-class carrier completed (in 1950) and the last used as an attack carrier, sailing into mothballs in 1976. Modernized in the late 1950s, Oriskany and several sister ships were able to support all but the most advanced jets with steam catapults and an angled landing deck.
This is the first angled-deck Essex-class carrier model in 1/700 scale. The kit features a beautifully cast resin waterline hull with a hangar deck that even has aircraft drop tanks hanging on a bulkhead! The flight deck is one piece with recessed outlines for the landing area and the large 34 on the bow. The island comes in two large parts.
The rest of the moldings are cast without bubbles or imperfections. Flight deck and island catwalks are all separate, as are the 5" guns, deck tractors, life-raft containers, and dozens of other small parts. A small fret of photoetched brass parts holds aircraft propellers, helicopter rotors, a large radar antenna, mast decks, and a radar support frame. No rails or ladders are provided.
The white-metal air wing includes two A-3 Skywarriors, six A-1 Skyraiders, seven A-4 Skyhawks, and four F-8 Crusaders. There is also a pair of E-1 Tracers and an SH-3 Sea King.
While nearly everything you need to model Oriskany is provided, building the model is difficult due to the confusing and incomplete instructions. First I marked the resin castings according to the parts map, but found that parts were not molded next to the ones on the pour stubs shown in the grainy photos.
Small parts are group packed in a strip of plastic pillows. One pillow with 24 identical parts had me stumped for a while. They were the whip-antenna mounts mentioned in the parts list, but not shown otherwise. Antenna locations are shown on the small side-view drawings, but they don't show how the mounts attach. I added them to the bottoms of the flight-deck catwalks.
Dozens of life-raft containers are provided, and the instructions say "place on either side of hull per drawings," but I couldn't find them in the drawings, so I left them off. No drawing showed how the boat davit was attached, so I left it off, too. I also couldn't spot where the flag bags were supposed to go. Four 5" guns are provided, but the instructions say to add five.
The photoetched main radar antenna is a thing of beauty, but the folding instructions for it and the antenna support are in tiny type and don't clearly show how they sit on the island.
Adding the catwalks around the flight-deck edge went well after I figured which side glues to the deck (you get the inboard bulkhead and the deck - the outside is open and should have rails added). A few of the catwalks were a little long but easily cut.
I built the island next. There is no locating device for the island on the flight deck, so align the top of the escalator housing (molded on the starboard side of the island) with the rest of the housing molded on the hull. Leave off the flight-deck sponsons (5 and 6) and the underside supports for the elevators (33 and 34) until you have positioned the flight deck on the hull.
The aircraft are good representations and most even have wheel wells, but some were cast lopsided. Tiny resin landing gear and underwing tanks are provided, and you're sure to lose a few while you install them. I folded the wings on several aircraft. The four-blade props provided on the photoetched sheet look great on the Skyraiders, but are incorrect for the Tracer (which should have three blades).
I painted the flight deck with Floquil Classic Military RLM 66 (black-gray), then masked and painted the deck markings with Polly Scale flat white and yellow. The rest of the ship is Polly Scale haze gray.
I found numbers and yellow-and-red hash-mark stripes for the elevators on a Gold Medal Models decal sheet for 1/700 scale carriers. I inserted .005" stainless-steel wires into holes drilled in the deck-edge whip-antenna mounts. My main reference was Stefan Terzibaschitsch's Aircraft Carriers of the U.S. Navy.
This Oriskany kit is a great start: It gives you the right shapes for an important ship in the development of modern carriers. But only experienced modelers with copious references will be able to take what is provided and apply proper details. I spent 40 hours getting to this point, and several more will be needed for adding aftermarket rails, rigging, and marking the aircraft.
- Paul Boyer