Carrier Air Wing 5 in 1/144 scale

In August 2013, it was my enormous pleasure and privilege to spend two hours touring USS George Washington while she was here in Brisbane. It was a truly unforgettable experience, and one that’s inspired me to put together a small collection of models as a touchstone of one of the peak experiences of my life.

Although I’d love to build a model of the carrier herself, aircraft are more familiar territory for me, so I decided to build a model of an aircraft from each of the nine squadrons aboard George Washington in 2013. At the moment, room at home is a little scarce, so although I’d like to build something on a grand scale, I settled on 1/144 scale, where the Super Hornets that in one version of another make up the bulk of the air wing are only palm-sized. I also decided that to avoid the wall-to-wall greyness, I would model the brightly-coloured CAG bird from each squadron, many of which I was able to see and photograph while aboard.

Fortunately, rounding up the kits for this exercise is mostly easy.  George Washington visited Brisbane with Carrier Air Wing 5 (CVW-5) embarked:

Squadron	Aircraft	Kit	Markings
VFA-102 — ‘Sidewinders’	F/A-18F Super Hornet	Dragon 4620	Supplied with kit
VFA-27 — ‘Royal Maces’	F/A-18E Super Hornet	Dragon 4618	Supplied with kit
VFA-115 — ‘Eagles’	F/A-18E Super Hornet	Dragon 4620	Supplied with kit
VFA-195 — ‘Dambusters’	F/A-18E Super Hornet	Dragon*	DXM 21-1105
VAQ-141 — ‘Nighthawks’	EA-18G Growler	Dragon 4623	Supplied with kit
VAW-115 — ‘Liberty Bells’	E-2C Hawkeye 2000	Revell 04012	MYK A-267
VRC-30 Det 5 — ‘Providers’	C-2A Greyhound	Revell 04012 Ozmods 14421	Supplied with conversion kit
HSC-12 — ‘Golden Falcons’	MH-60S Knighthawk	Dragon 4616	—
HSM-77 — ‘Sabrehawks’	MH-60R Seahawk	Dragon 4621*	—

Of the five Super Hornet squadrons, Dragon already sells kits with the required markings supplied for four of them, and fortunately, DXM decals produces an after-market decal sheet for the fifth, VFA-195 — ‘Dambusters’. The Dragon kits are sold in boxes of two models, usually an E and an F model together. I bought a second copy of kit 4618 to supply the E for the DXM decals and figured I might use the F to do an RAAF Super Hornet, since I had it on hand...

Revell actually does a kit of an E-2C in Liberty Bells markings, but the scheme is old now, from when the squadron was embarked on USS Kitty Hawk. MYK sells sheets for Liberty Bells from the Kitty Hawk era as well as the George Washington era, which freed me to buy any boxing of the kit I could find. I bought two copies, one to build as an E-2C, and the other to convert to a C-2A Greyhound using the Ozmods conversion kit, which conveniently also comes with the right markings.

The helos are a little bit more difficult; Dragon does an MH-60S kit, but not an MH-60R. In the latter case, I ordered up kit 4621 that supplies an SH-60B and an SH-60F. I guess I’m about to become real familiar with the finer details of the differences in the Seahawk family (just one reason I love this hobby so very much). And no decals are available for either of these squadrons, which is likely to pose an even bigger challenge when I get to them...

But first, the Super Hornets!