Dragon has captured the look and feel of the USS
Independence in its new kit.
On two sprues of light gray plastic, the ship parts are crisply molded with the fidelity modelers expect today. The second sprue is an older tooling, not as well molded, and has flash. Fortunately, only the H-60 Sea-hawk is needed from that sprue. The kit provides the option of a waterline or full hull plus a nifty little stand.
Photoetched-metal parts include railing, netting, and bulkheads. Sadly, the photoetched metal does not include rotor blades for the Seahawk; the plastic ones are thick and out of scale. The decals are excellent and lie down easily on a coat of Pledge Future floor polish.
The instructions fall short in a few areas. The liferaft canisters would be easier to align and assemble with the hull parts C42 and C44. It is useful to check the painting guide to place parts C4, C36, C37, and MA4. According to my reference photographs, parts C14 should overhang the side of the ship. The instructions also do not show the cutting required for Part C38 (stern) if you are building the waterline version. I did assemble the full hull parts, and they went together well. You have the option of open hangars and hatches at the stern. The mast is tricky because of the lack of locators. Part C20 is oversized and will require a little sanding.
Painting the ship poses a bit of a problem, as the actual ship is not painted; it’s aluminum, and oxidization causes a patchy, varied look, with colors that are difficult to replicate. (Think of an aluminum lamppost in a parking lot.) I used Model Master IJA light gray (No. 2115) for the hull and light ghost gray (1728) for the flight deck. Both colors were weathered with medium gray pastel chalk as I tried to replicate the patchwork appearance. (A good source for photos is
www.navsource.com.) I colored the windows with a drafting pen and ink.
The decals are excellent, with spot-on registration. The long stripes were troublesome, but that is normal. Also, I discovered I should not have glued the gun in place before decals.
The photoetched-metal parts are OK; the safety netting for the flight deck is good, but the railings for the stern alcoves did not fit well.
The model measures out exactly from bow to stern but is .20" too wide. Still, the kit captures the look of the real ship. If I were modifying the kit, I would replace the antennas, mast C10, and the railing parts MA8 and MA9 – and those rotor blades if I could find them in photoetched metal.
I recommend this kit to any modeler who is used to handling the tiny parts in this scale.