Trumpeter 1/350 USS Yorktown CV 10 Aircraft Carrier 1944 Kit First Look

By Abram Joslin

First Look

The USS Yorktown was the second Essex class aircraft carrier planned during World War II. She was laid down 1 Dec 1941 and commissioned on 15 April 1943. She was initially named Bon Homme Richard, but renamed to honor CV-5 which was sunk on 7 June 1942. The Essex class ships were built to provide a larger platform from which to launch naval air strikes and to strengthen the diminishing carrier force. Within the course of her WWII service the Yorktown played a major role in destroying several Japanese ships, including the IJN Yamato, the biggest battleship ever built, and several aircraft carriers. The Yorktown was refitted and used in later wars and is now preserved as a museum at Patriot's Point, Charleston, SC.

Upon receiving the kit I made note of how much larger it actually was then the earlier released USS Hornet kit. The kit comes with:

• Upper hull
• Lower hull
• Waterline plate
• Base (stand)
• Four different types of aircraft
• Seven sprues for the ship
• A large decal sheet, color placement guide, and the building instructions

The box art depicts the Yorktown in her 1944 fit with the Dazzle Camouflage scheme, though daunting as the art can already make this kit seem, it actually won’t be hard to paint with proper masking. Upon opening the box I found all the sprues, decks, and hulls in sealed plastic bags, everything in perfect condition.

The sprues are labeled by letters (A-G, Gx2). The castings look very clean and crisp; Trumpeter has really out done themselves on this kit. One feature included in this kit is the addition of hangar deck bulkhead details, which was lacking in the earlier Hornet release. To see the interior detail the modeler will need to open up the hangar doors, which shouldn’t be a hard task, you can either sand the back down a bit and cut out the door and fill gaps afterwards, or get a sharp knife and just cut through the plastic with out sanding. Not only are the sprues lettered, the instructions include pictures of each sprue and it’s letter along with the rest of the pieces included in the kit; Trumpeter has made it very easy for the modeler to follow the instructions and not get confused on what goes where or from what sprue it comes from.

• Sprue A: This sprue consists of Exterior hangar bulkheads, roller door stops and gun platforms
• Sprue B: Contains more exterior bulkheads, some interior bulkheads, gun platforms, and other misc. platforms
• Sprue C: Elevator bulkheads, ventilators, misc. bulkheads and platforms
• Sprue D: Majority of the interior bulkheads, flight deck supports, 5”/38 open mount platforms
• Sprue E: Superstructure and island parts, deck elevators and a whale boat
• Sprue F: The Island, island platforms, gun platforms, platform supports
• Sprue G (2): All of the weapons, life boats, running gear (props, shafts, etc)
• Sprue J (4): SBD Dauntless
• Sprue L (4): F6F Hellcat
• Sprue M (4): SB2C Helldiver
• Sprue N (4): TBF Avenger

The kit comes with two decal sheets, one for the aircraft included in the kit, and one for the ship itself. The Aircraft decal comes with the stars and bars and unit markings, the ship decals come with flight deck numbers, lines, and elevator markings. Included is a color reference sheet; this provides a view of the camouflage scheme on the port, starboard, and overhead views. This sheet also tells you where the decals are supposed to go and how to paint/decal the aircraft.

The kit instructions are straight forward and easy to understand, but it is still recommended that the modeler read them over carefully several times to help in the construction of the model. The instruction sheet provides the instructions for the assembly of the ship and the aircraft provided in the kit. Every page is laid out in an easy to understand manner, and the only part that one could get confused at is in the last few pages were all of the guns will be put onto the model, but again, careful reading of the instructions before hand will get rid of any doubts as to where parts will go.

Overall I think this is a very well made representation of the USS Yorktown and would highly recommend it to anyone seeking to build this ship. It looks like it would be an awesome model right out of the box, but with the addition of aftermarket photo etch the kit would really hold it’s place as a museum quality model. I will be doing a build up review of this kit when I start, using Gold Medal Model’s PE sets and L’arsenal after market items, keep an eye out for it if you are wanting to see how this ship goes together, and maybe getting pointers on things that you might have found daunting upon opening the box.