Building a 1:144 Scale Radio-Controlled USS Nimitz:
by Dan Linton

The Nimitz was commissioned in 1975 and underwent a major overhaul in 1983.Several radars were changed, Mark 25 Sea Sparrow launchers were swapped for Mark 29's, and other upgrades implemented : the new Trumpeter 1:350 kit depicts the carrier in this time frame, as does the 144 scale model I am building.

From 1983 to 1989 the modified Nimitz stayed in the Atlantic with CVW-8 but after 1989 switched to the Pacific fleet and adopted a new air wing. In 2000 the ship underwent its mid-life nuclear refueling and after 2½ years at Newport News Shipyard rejoined active service, again heavily modified from her previous form. Modelers get to choose from four time frames, 1975-83; 1983-89; 1989-2000, and post-2002. Most, I suspect, will choose the earliest or latest time frame. I did not want to carve any aircraft as I had for the 1:192 Kennedy - and 1:144 aircraft had begun to come on the market. Originally, I had not thought to provide Phantom II's for my model: perhaps it was seeing the Trumpeter boxing that changed my mind.

Of all the aircraft I have done for the Nimitz, the F-4J's were the latest to be done (Jan-Feb. 2005) The first picture shows three aircraft from VF-31 'Tomcatters' (note the AC tailcode) and three aircraft from VMFA-333 'Shamrocks'. Each squadron had 12 aircraft but I determined very early not to build the entire air wing (84-86 machines) - roughly 3/4 of that number would be enough.

As you look at the first picture please keep the following in mind. First, the camera flatters these aircraft: they are posed on my ping-pong table which is not at all glossy. They are not pieces of the modeler's art such as 'neu' and others have displayed on this website: they are not weathered or detailed enough for a diorama. None of the F-4J's have open cockpits (they are terrible on these kits) or pilots or any stores except fuel tanks. Only two of the six in the first picture have accurate modex numbers. Everyone on this website should be familiar with the 'Go Navy' website www.ne.jp/asahi/gonavy/atsugi/ -- the best place to get accurate information on airwings. Because of this site, all the modex numbers on my airwing (except for  some of the F-4J's) are accurate.

The second picture shows four F-4J's from VF-74 'Be-devilers' and an  RA-5C of RVAH-6 'Fleurs'. The Vigilante comes from an Arii kit. It is a straightforward build but has no cockpit detail, pilots, or stores. I am considering building another RVAH-6 machine and one from RVAH-9 which served one cruise on Nimitz. The Phantoms here and in picture 1 come from Heller F-4E kits (likely a reboxing of old LS molds). These kits had to be hightly modified to make them approximate an F-4J. This involved cutting 11/32" from the nose and changing the landing gear doors. The result is an 'approximate' F-4J ('approximate' = don't look too closely) with poor canopies (I was unwilling to make my own for these machines).

The third and fourth pictures shows a line-up of ten F-14's from VF-41 'Black Aces'. Four have popped canopies, one has pilots, and stores vary from machine to machine. Two are in 'lo-viz' schemes, the rest in gull gray/white 'hi-viz'. A company called LS produced the first F-14 kits in 1:144 and they were gems -- but they had neither cockpit detail, or pilots, or stores. When Dragon produced their 1:144 F-14 kits they supplied more and varied decals, stores, and pilots: however, their kits had unusual flaw. The maximum wing sweep of an F-14 in flight is 68 degrees and you get this with the Dragon kits --- however, on the flight deck F-14s have an 'oversweep' setting of 75 degrees and the Dragon kits cannot do this while the LS offerings can. Most of the F-14's I made for the  Nimitz are LS kits, but that required that I built in some seats and other cockpit detail.

The fifth picture shows a line-up of nine VF-84 'Jolly Rogers' F-14's. Three have popped canopies and one has crewmembers. Altogether, I provided 19 of  the 24 F-14's in the airwing: if I ever develop the willpower and the necessary skills to do detailed dioramas, I will have five aircraft that can still be modelled with accurate modex.

The sixth picture shows nine A-6E's of VA-35 'Black Panthers, the kits provided by Dragon. Four of the canopies are open. Unfortunately, the crew members are molded in with the rest of the canopy detail and I didn't think it was worth my while to cut them out. Some have fuel tanks and I can add stores later as all have pylons. Two of these machines have been modified as KA-6D tankers but these modifications cannot be seen in this picture.

Pictures 7 and 8 show eight A-7E's from VA-82 'Marauders' and nine A-7E's from VA-86 Sidewinders'. Years ago, I discovered that Aeroclub in England produced a 1:144 injection-molded A-7 which had a vacuum canopy and white metal parts.

However, they were very expensive and I only purchased three. I got the brilliant idea of vacuforming the aircraft I would need (A-7's, S-3's, SH-3's, E-2C's) and built a vacuum box: with vacuum cleaner hose ready to  suck mightily, and the oven heated, I would chase my wife out of the kitchen and produce! I soon discovered that the work involved in vacuumforming (or more truthfully, my amateur efforts at vacuumforming) was at least equal to carving! So, altogether I produced 28 A-7 Corsair II's -- 3 from Aeroclub kits, 3 from my vacuforming, and 22 carved from basswood (and remember, I picked 1:144 as the scale to work in because I did not want to carve any aircraft). I made my own canopies for all those aircraft but they are so thin I dare not open any. Pictures 7 and 8 show 17 of the 28 A-7's I made the others were decaled to depict other USN squadrons (those 'extra' A-7's may form part of a future article: for a long time I entertained the mad ambition of providing a 1:144 model of every squadron of every major aircraft flown by the USN/USMC in the jet age).

Thanks to two sources, I have all the decals I needed for this airwing. The first is my computer/scanner/inkjet printer - I purchased 1/72 and 1/48 decals for squadrons I needed and reduced them and created my own 1:144 sets. And in the case of the Nimitz air wing, many decals were created for me by Yuuichi Kurakami (YK Craft) who is a talented resin molder, modeler, and decal maker (website: www.alpha-net.ne.jp/users2/kura1/mswtopENGLISH.htm). I will be mentionning Yuuichi a number of times in these articles as a way of thanking him for his help and encouragement.

End of Section II