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There was still a lot of work to be done with the main deck. Quite a bit of instrumentation and various equipment. All of the antennae, all of the life rafts and various ship's boats, and finally all of the hand railing for the sponsons, on various levels of the hull and on the deck itself, as well as the webbing. The boats, life rafts, instrumentation, antennae, webbing, netting, and handrails were made up of probably 300 or more pieces.
  When these were complete, it took several days to attach them all and then painstakingly cut all of railings and nettings and attach them. Lots of touch up painting as I went. Some people install most of the parts and pieces and even handrailing before painting...I prefer to paint as I go, installing painted pieces and then tocuhing up any necessary areas either from paint affected by the glue, or glue spots on the paint itself. Then it was time to attach the Island. The vessel itself still needs the rudders, props, shafs and supports, but otherwise is complete. I have yet to add the decals on the deck, and there are a lot of them which will be painstaking but very gratifying. Then, we'll build the air wing and deck vehicles and equipment, paint them, add decals, and place them. But for right now, she's looking pretty good.
        This is where I have gotten to date. My plan over the next few weeks is the following, and I will update this posting as I go along: At that point I will be finished with my PLAN Navy Carrier from Trumpeter. At that point I will do my priniple PLAN Escort for the carrier, Trumpeter's DDG-170, Lanshou Type 052C destroyer. This is the Chinese Arleigh Burke-like destroyer with PARS, battle management and VLS air defense missiles. After that, I will build Hobby Boss's PLAN SSN attack submarine, the PLAN SSN-405, ChangZheng5, a Type 091 Han class SSN, for escort duties. Then, rather than build the other three surface combatants (Trumpeter's DDG-168, Guangzhou; DDG-139, Ningbo; and FFG-570, Huangshan) as part of the Chinese Carrier Strike Group, I will build the initial portion of the US Navy Carrier Strike Group. That US CSG will be centered on Tamiya's 1/350 scale USS Enterprise, CVN-65. I will build Trumpeter's USS Bunker Hill, CG-52 an AEGIS Cruiser, Trumpeter's DDG-82, USS Lassen an AEGIS destroyer, and the Los Angeles Class attack sumbmarine, Testor's SSN-764, USS Boise (It was actaully the San Juan, but I built and marked it as the USS Boise) which I have already completed.
   Then back to finish the Chinese CSG, and then finish the US CSG with the following four vessels: Trumpeter's USS Iwo Jima LHD-7, Trumpeter's USS Freedom, LCS-1, Cyber Hobby's USS Independence, LCS-2, Hobby Boss's USS Texas, SSN-775. When a USS Gerald R. Ford comes out, I will add it to this group along with another AEGIS Cruiser and Burke DDG. Outside of the new Trumpeter Type 054A FFG-570 Huangshan which comes out in May, I already have all of these vessels and the photo etch sets to go with them. I will post seperate postings/threads/pages for each build as I go through it. Once the US and PLAN groups are built, I intend on building complete Russian (centered on Trumpeter's Kuznetsov) and UK (centered on the HMS Queen Elizabeth if it is available then, and if not then on Airfix's HMS Invinsible) strike groups as well. Once the models are available, I'd like to build a Japanese group centered on their new 22DDH carrier and the Hyuga, an Italian Group centered on the Cavour, a French Group centered on the De Gaulle, a Spanish Group centered on the Jaun Carlos, and ultimatly an Australian Group centered on the new Canberra. If they ever build the models, an Indian group centered on either the Vikramaditya or their new ADS Carrier the Vikrant would also be nice. You can see all of these carriers at my site: All of these along with their escorts will be in 1/350 scale. Literally years worth of building. ...and most of their surface escorts at: AEGIS AND AEGIS-LIKE VESSELS OF THE WORLD Jeff Head
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