Superdetailing the Carl Vinson in 1/350 scale

by Dave Kopielski

I started with the Nimitz model and converted it to the USS Carl Vinson CVN-70 as she was at the start of the 1983 world cruise (her maiden deployment).  All differences as well as the hangar bay details were scratch built. I purchased extra aircraft sets to fill ship with all 86 aircraft. The decals for the hangar bay and aircraft were made by me. The ship is also illuminated with over 500 feet of fiber optic lines and 40 LED’s.  Photoetch sets were used on the ship and for all the aircraft. The ship is also accented with resin CIWS and deck tractors, 3-D printed hangar doorways and Tilly Crash tractor.

A total of 777 hours were spent building.

Additional pictures can be found at the following locations.

On the IPMS-USA website – https://gallery.ipmsusa3.org/index.php?/category/davekop

On Facebook (build pics, no login required) – https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10208964525897838.1073741834.1457024256&type=1&l=50e8812e52

On Flickr (high resolution images) – https://www.flickr.com/photos/128642409@N05/albums/72157687002588814