something in between: 1/144 light harrier carrier (FINISHED)

[Spey_Phantom]

With work on the 1/144 aircraft carrier "BNS Dendermonde" now continueing at a slow but steady pace, i thought i would start demolition of the LNS Hadock carrier now that i have a bigger and better carrier in the works.

but it is a shame to waist such a good hull, and i decided to keep the hull and have a little fun with it 
so instead of destroying the hull, i decided to give it a new lease of life and convert it into a VSTOL/helicopter carrier.
so yesterday after work, i stopped at the LHS on the way home and bought 2 A4-size sheets of styrene of 2mm thick allong with some tins of paint.
so after some cutting and fitting, the new deck was fitted 

today, i fitted it with a ski-jump (witch seems a bit to steap) and alligned some strips of 0.5mm thick to minimize the bumps. as for the main island structure, im planning something a bit more modern like the new Cavour carrier Italy has 

she's about 64cm long and 16.5cm wide.
for 1/144 i think she make a pretty good light LHD 
i dont know witch coutry should operate it, im thinking maybe Sweden, Norway, Mexico or Canada.
as for a name, that will depend on the operator 

picture time, sorry for the bad quality on pic2, its dark outside.
the 2 sea harriers on board will be part of the airwing, the spanish AV-8B+ is just to test the ski-jump.

[Hobbes]

Yep, that's a bit too steep. You need a 7 degree angle. Cool project!

[Spey_Phantom]

BUMP.

managed to start some work last night, ive added an angled flight deck, as i plan to use it as a STOBAR configured carrier, destined for my Leutonian Navy 

i used a pencil to draw some lines on the deck to see how useful the deck conversion is.
up to now it looks promising 
for take off, a rafale would be placed at the end of the ship, with its wheels blocked, accelarate with full afterburner, then it would be released and will be flung into the air with the Ski-jump.
the aircraft would land back on the carrier like a normal conventional aircraft.

the designing of the island superstructure started this morning, and i already am looking for a name for the new carrier.
i was thinking "LNS Westkerke", named after the village where i will be moving to in mid-january.
the airwing will consist out of 2 Rafale-M's, 1 SH-135 and 1 AEW converted SH-60 Seahawk.

seen here is the additional plate added, i placed a french and a leutonian rafale on the deck, to see how the ship can accomodate the planes 
for the rest, not much progress im affraid 

[Weaver]

Ski-jump angles on the Invincibles started out at 7 deg, but were then modified to 12 deg. I think the Spanish and Italian carriers are about the same, but I don't know what the Kusnetsov's angle is.

[dy031101]

Ski-jump angles on the Invincibles started out at 7 deg, but were then modified to 12 deg. I think the Spanish and Italian carriers are about the same, but I don't know what the Kusnetsov's angle is.

According to Wikipedia, Kuznetsov has a 12-degree skijump and Vikramaditya (ex-Kiev class) is to have a 14.3-degree one.

[B777LR]

Perhaps a Danish carrier?

[Captain Canada]

Beauty ! I love small ships and Harriers...they go together so well !

[Spey_Phantom]

UPDATE

a new year, and also a new carrier update.
changed my mind (again) on the carrier design, this time i decided to stick with the small harrier carrier idea.
in the future i would propably build a larger stobar carrier. i downloaded some reerence pictures from the HMS Invincible-class carriers to help me on the way, the shipbuket profile i found will prove valauble for the island design.

i already build a small island for the ship, but it looks a but to small 
so that will propably end up either as an airfield tower, or the structure for another ship 
im gonna start cutting for a new island superstructure in the same lines as the invincible.

ive already sprayed the top in grey a good 3 or 4 weeks ago, now i just painted the black & white lineson the deck, there are still a few runners in the white paint, but thats already been cleaned up 

most notable on the progress photo's is the new lower angled ski-jump, i had hell of a time removing the old one, and it was hard to replace it with the new one, cause most of the plastic was damaged. luckely i managed to fill up the worst parts with some glue and putty, but wasnt easy.

anyway, here's the pics 

[Spey_Phantom]

UPDATE.

after 2 hours of cutting, fitting and pasting, the baseline for the new island structure is here.
it already looks far better then the smaller one, im building it in modules, first the basline, the the bridge, tower, radar masts, chimneys,.....

i used a profile from HMS Invincible found on shipbucket to draw the base for the cutting.
now comes the hardest part, building up to make the island complete.
this is gonna be more complex then the on the larger 1/144 carrier "Dendermonde".

anyway, judge for yourselves 







and here a pair of pics with a part of the airwing on top, 2 sea harriers and 1 AV-8B+.

[Draken35]

Very impressive, Nils! 

[John Howling Mouse]

I'm enjoying seeing the results of your chopping and gluing.  Seeing the Harriers on deck made me realize this would be a considerable amount of deployable (is that a real word?) firepower for a ship that size.

[sotoolslinger]

That is some seriously bad arse scratchin right there

[Ed S]

That is some serious scratchbuilding.  It's looking good so far.



Ed

[lancer]

This is looking very good, and I am impressed skills, but are those planes really 144th?? They look WAY overscale to me when compared to the size of the superstructure

[Spey_Phantom]

i havent really made any progress on the carrier for a few weeks now, but now that the workbench is empty at the moment, i thought i would make some progress before the soviet GB starts.

a few weeks ago, i build 2 addon components for the bridge and control tower, ive also been going through the 1/72 snowberry's box to see what parts i can use on this ship, the antenna will have to be scratchbuild, so thats gonna take some time 

anyway, im gonna try to get the vessel finished before the moving starts, im also planning to take the Shars out of service and replace them with 2 F-35B's or AV-8B+'s.

furthermore, i also like to announce that after this project i will be building a 3rd carrier 
this one will be a small Kuznetsov-class carrier, for this nim gonna use the hull of a damaged 1/350 Bismark, witch i have obtained on a rumage sale about 1 year ago for the price of 50 cents 
i dont have an idea for a nationality yet, but im thinking Chinese, North Korean or Belkan (see Ace Combat Zero).
the planes will most possibly be SU-25K/UTG and MIG-29K, although there is a possibility of navalised J-10, J-8 or J-7's.
for beyond 2010, im also thinking of converting a larger scale battleship into a Kiev-class like carrier 

OK, her some pics of the progress on the island, im nog gonna pay much attention on detail, as it will propably be used on a shelf for displaying naval aircraft.