I thought I’d build an Aircraft Carrier

The "searchlight" looks like an SPG-55 director for the Terrier missile system. Is there one in the corresponding position to starboard? In her original configuration, K Hawk also had two SPG-55s on the island, one each side, to work with the corresponding missile launcher, but I don't see them on the model. Wish I could see more detail!

Radars like the SPG-55 were sometimes referred to as "searchlight radars" since they put out a narrow beam intended to track a specific target and guide a missile to it. The original Terrier missiles were beam-riders, flying up the beam to the target. Later versions of Terrier and the followon Standard missile used semi-active homing, a receiver in the nose of the missile picked up radar energy from the director reflected from the target; the target was said to be "illuminated".

Nuclear Terriers remained beam-riders to maintain positive control throughout their flight.

 

This model lacks in some detail. And I made a few mistakes and added some parts at my own choosing, just like the color of the deck. Also, they had no prestarted holes in the hull save for four for the four rudders. I finished drilling them through with a small gimlet. The instructions showed what looked like holes also for the four screw shafts but sometimes the drawings on certain instructions confuse me a bit. The bottom line is, and you can’t see it very well, is that I glued three screws and shafts onto the underside instead of the four provided. Also, unlike the box top art, they never included those big round spheres that look like big golf balls, or whatever you call them. I believe two were shown, one fore and one aft of the island. But I did glue the ship’s crane onto the deck also which you can’t see with my model on the starboard side and they gave you one nameplate but two differently colored stickers to apply, one red and one black. But I thought that it should be displayed looking at the port side rather than the way the box art is depicted. And also, what are those pointed things that stick up from both sides of the edge of the deck? The box shows them in the down position but the instructions showed them to be glued in the vertical position. Perhaps because they are down when the ship is underway. The bottom line is, Academy and any models by Tamiya are far better than anything that Revell produces these days.

 

Those are "whip" radio antennas; they pivot down to be out of the way for flight operations. They used to need individual antennas for each radio circuit (VHF IIRC). They were still on the LHA Saipan which I served on in the 1980s but are no longer used.

The whips were very thin, like the cover art, but I guess there's a limit to how thin they can make the plastic pieces. To make them more visible to helo pilots, we had two little metal circles on the end, at right angles, so it looked like a little ball.

One night on the "Sea Pig" I was Officer of the Deck, and we spotted a dim light ahead. We were in open ocean, and there was nothing on the radar. It seemed to be a long way off and didn't appear to move or get any closer. I and my two watch officers kept checking it out (it was a quiet night) but couldn't figure out what it was. Finally I realized it was the little ball on the end one of our own antennas, reflecting some very faint light from somewhere on the ship!

 

Thank you

 

Ahhh, the Kittyhawk! I had never been on a fleet carrier except for the USS Lexington, CV-16 when I was a kid, and my dad was going through flight school in Pensacola to be an RIO in F4 Phantom jets. She was the 7th Essex class carrier, had an 862ft flight deck, displaced 36,960 tons and had a beam of 93 ft. I thought it was a big ship (these numbers will be relevant in a moment). Fast forward to young adult and two of the ships I trained or deployed on were Iwo Jima class LPH's, LPH-7 Guadalcanal and LPH-9 Guam, (I deployed on some smaller ships, LST's and LSD's but I'm listing ships I thought were big). They were 592ft long with an 84ft beam and displaced 18,474 tons. Big ships but still smaller than the Lexington. I'd seen other, modern fleet carriers but always from a distance so you can't really appreciate their scale.


Iwo Jima class LPH, USS New Orleans.

Fast forward a few more years, we're training up on the Tarawa class LHA, USS Peleliu, LHA-5. We later deployed on her but the time in question we were only temporarily embarked for a regimental exercise on Camp Pendleton. We travelled down to the naval base at Coronado and went on board to sail up to Camp Pendleton, where we would be delivered by helicopter and amtrac. I thought now this is a big ship, 820 ft long, 106.5 ft wide, displacing 39,438 tons.
We were standing on the flight deck and had just passed under the Coronado Bridge on our way out. We passed close aboard Kitty Hawk sailing into port as we exited. She dwarfed us, we were looking up at her flight deck towering over us and she seemed to go on forever and was incredibly wide. To paraphrase "Crocodile Dundee", "you call that a boat, now this is a fuggin boat!"
She actually ran over a Soviet Victor-class nuclear attack sub that surfaced in front of her in the Sea of Japan. The crew, displaying typical military black humor and bravado, painted a red sub silhouette on her island, the powers that be made them remove it later. Guess it wasn't "politically correct".
I personally think, the vast majority of generals, admirals, and colonels assigned to the Pentagon and Washington have their backbones and testicles remove prior to assignment. They get all but hurt over small things and have forgotten what it is like to serve out in harm's way.

 

Although she was CV-16, Lexington was the second Essex class ship commissioned and the third to go into combat. The Navy contracted for CV-9-15 from Newport News Shipbuilding and CV-16-19 from Fore River. With both yards building, the ships were commissioned in order:
9
16
10
17
11
12
18
13
19
14
20*
15

*CV-20, Bennington, was ordered a week after Pearl Harbor (Dec 15, 1941) and built by the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

 

When my father had Ranger (CVA-61) I remember standing on the flight deck and looking across the pier into the bridge of the Coral Sea.

Talk about wonky engines . . . Ranger's were the bane of my father's existence while he was CO.