Building an aircraft carrier? A 1:700 aircraft set populates its deck in the most widely used naval scale there is. Sets normally contain several airframes at once, from Swordfish and carrier Zeros to the modern F-35B, so one purchase covers an entire air group rather than a single machine.
Below we explain how to assemble a credible air group for a particular ship and year, and which few tools turn work on two-centimetre aeroplanes from an ordeal into something you look forward to.
Seven-hundredth scale is the global standard for warship kits, which makes aircraft sets in it a surprisingly rich category. A fighter measures around two centimetres, yet recent sets manage canopy glazing as a clear part, delicate propellers and separate folded wings. Alongside Second World War air groups, including early Pacific carrier types, there are contemporary machines and genuine curiosities such as patrol airships with 3D-printed detail.
Pick aircraft for a specific vessel and date: early Pacific types for the opening campaigns, later-war fighters for 1944 and after, the F-35B for current amphibious ships. The right air group is half the credibility of a warship model.
A deck comes alive when folded and spread wings are mixed and a few airframes sit on the lifts. Order with a margin, because at this size a part can be lost or spoiled without ceremony.
Ordinary injection sets carry the overall impression perfectly well; finer castings exist for models that will be photographed close up. What really decides the result is clean application of national markings, and at two centimetres that is tweezer work and a steady hand, for which nothing else substitutes.
Larger deck aircraft for big warship kits are listed under 1:350 aircraft sets, the vessels themselves under ship model kits, and the complete aviation catalogue at aircraft model kits.
