Just wanted to know what you guys thought of the layout for my airwing.



It’s the USS Hornet around the Battle of Midway.

None of them are glued down so they can still be changed.

I’m thinking of having the fighter up at the front taking off. Possibly putting I small piece or clear plastic under it to hold it slightly above the deck.

Let me know if it looks realistic or not.

Hey Jacob!
Looks good , mate...You might be able to use a piece of stiff light gauge wire as well to hold up the end plane in early flight...
~Gunny

Hi Kenny

Perhaps I would change those parked near the Island...
You already have some parked amidships and you have a batch of them ready to take-off... so I would leave the runway clear for those going on a mission

Just my 2 cents
Skipper

Hey Jacob,

The aircraft would have been as far back on the deck as possible in order to have enough flight deck to take off. Here's a photo of VT-6 preparing for launch from the Enterprise at Midway.



Kenny

Thanks guys.
I’ll move them back a little more and see about relocating or removing the 3 by the island. The box art showed a few there but they do look like they would get in the way.

For the front plane taking off I’m planing in glueing a piece of that thin clear plastic from packaging on the bottom of the plane and to the deck. The plane won’t be very high so I’m thinking it will hard it and be less noticeable then the wire.

Remember to put your larger slower planes to the very rear and work up. The Devastators would be the furthest back followed by the Dauntlass' and the Wildcats would be at the front as they needed less "airstrip" to get airborne. All would be facing forward and packed in pretty tight.

Steve's got it nailed.

I've been reading "Shattered Sword" the book which corrects the record about a lot of the "facts" we know about the battle of Midway. I highly recommend it as a great reference about how the battle unfolded and why.

The authors go into some detail about the differences in the launch of the initial air-strikes from the Enterprise and Hornet. Hornet doesn't get good grades on several issues, with much of the blame going to her air group commander. Not only did he insist on flying a course which ensured that the ONLY squadron which actually engaged the enemy was the Torpedo squadron, which deliberately broke off from the main group (and was the first carrier squadron to find the enemy fleet and lost every plane and all but one pilot), but the order in which he set up the launch of the strike caused problems as well.

The Yorktown class carriers each embarked 4 squadrons, each with nominally 18 planes. The fighter squadrons had the F4 Wildcats, the Torpedo squadrons had the TBD Devastators, and there was a "Bombing" and a "Scouting" squadron, each with the SBD "Dauntless". In practice the VB and VS squadrons were mostly interchangeable to an extent.

There wasn't enough room on the flight deck for all 4 squadrons at the same time, so if the intent was to launch all planes, then roughly half the air group was spotted and launched, and then the remainder.

So for starters, if you want to accurately depict the launch of the strikes on the morning of June 4th, you'd want to have the same spotting that Hornet used that morning as there would definitely be a "correct" order on the flight deck.

What Hornet did, was in the first deckload, the fighters were spotted forward and thus took off first. Behind the fighters were the SBDs and half of the TBDs. Since both VB-8 and VS-8 launched, it is reasonable that there would be aircraft from both squadrons on deck. What's NOT clear is how many fighters VF-8 sent on the strike, (they would probably have only sent half as an escort, keeping the remaining 9 back for Combat Air Patrol over the ship) and whether all 36 SBDs as well as 8 TBDs were on the deck along with the fighters. If you don't have ALL the planes it doesn't matter anyway.

So to be correct, you'd have about 9 or so TBDs on the fantail, the SBDs forward of that and the fighters in front of them. And as Steve said, they'd all be facing forward and packed in tight. In fact they would have had wings folded to maximize the number on deck, unfolding each one as it came out of the pack and readied for take off.



Tom

Thanks guys but I’m not to concerned with the layout of different types of planes. The kit only comes with Dauntlesses (is that even correct?) And with the kit being an off scale I can’t get other planes for it.

Thats some very interesting info Tom. I may just look into this book sometime.

Here's a photo of flight ops.



Kenny

Yes, Hornet did have the SBD Dauntless at Midway, but as mentioned she also had the F4 Wildcat and the TBD Devastator.

At the time of the Battle of Midway, Hornet's Air Group had a "Scout" squadron (VS-8) and a "Bombing" squadron (VB-8), both of which were equipped with the SBD Dauntless. Nominal strength for each squadron was 18 planes, and while the "scouting" squadron was nominally for that purpose (the combat range of the SBD was 1175 nautical miles) there was no real difference (other than markings) between the planes in the two squadrons as far as I know.

After doing some additional digging, I discovered that Hornet sent 16 planes from VS-8 and 18 planes from VB-8 on the initial strike, all armed with bombs for the purpose of attacking the Japanese Main Body where the carriers were. They first launched all 18 F4's from VF-8 ahead of the SBDs, 10 of which were to accompany the strike, and the remaining 8 to stay behind over the ship as a Combat Air Patrol.

All 34 SBDs were spotted behind the fighters, and at the very end of the flight deck were 6 TBDs. VT-8 only had 15 planes on board the carrier, and the remaining 9 were still below and only spotted on deck after all the other aircraft were clear.

So if all you have are SBDs, you could bunch them all toward the back (leaving the space for the 6 TBDs that would have been there, that you don't have) and maybe have one being moved forward for take off, and one just lifting off.

It's how she would have looked sometime between about 0705 (which was approximately when the last of the 18 fighters would have been off), and 0715, which was when the first TBD took off.

Tom

Hey Tom,

I think he was talking about the spelling of Dauntlesses.

Thanks again tom but actually I was just wondering if the “ES” on the end of Dauntless was right. Just didn’t look right to me.

Do you think it would really be better to leave the blank spots or should I just fill them in with SBDs instead (considering both would be historical wrong anyway.)

DOOOH!! (Never mind!!)

Since no one (and I mean NO ONE) is going to look at your build and say "Hey, that's not right!" I'd do what you think is best.

Since the practice was to have whatever aircraft that were spotted on deck, spotted as far to the rear as possible to allow maximum take off roll, it would probably be better to have everything placed at the back. And leaving the aircraft not glued to the deck may be a good idea. Who knows, maybe someday somebody will make F4s and TBDs in "box" scale.

Tom

Maybe the plural of Dauntless is Dauntli, kinda like hippopotami and hippopotamus

Nah, the plural of Daunt -less is........




(Wait for it....................................)




Daunt -MORE!

Tom

:-) :-)

Works for me.

Geez...we sound like a bunch of 8th graders. :-) :-)

ain't it great.

Kenny

ROTFLAMO! :-)

You win, there's NO WAY to top that.