Tamiya 78007 1/350 USS Enterprise Aircraft Carrier Plastic Model Boat Kit

Great, very accurately detailed model of the USS Enterprise. Definitely not for the novice model builder. I am a somewhat experienced model builder and it took me 7 months to build this ship (Loved every minute of it). Masking & Painting of the flight deck alone required over 2 weeks of meticulous work. Much of the detailed construction (i.e. Mast antenna wire, Signal flag rigging & signal flag installation, Island construction, etc.) required tweezers and magnification equipment. I served 6 years in the US Navy and although I did not server on the Enterprise, my ship was part of her support group in Viet Nam and we oped with her in the late 60's. I also ordered the US Navy Aircraft Set #2 (Viet Nam Era Navy aircraft) and used some of them on the flight deck (F-4 Phantom, E-2C Hawkeye, SH-3H Sea King Helicopter & the EA-6B Prowler) to represent the Big E's presence in Viet Nam.I enjoyed building this model and am very satisfied with the finished product. I have built other US Navy ships offered by Tamiya and appreciate their detailed accuracy, but they hit a "Home Run" with the Enterprise! I only wish that Tamiya offered a bigger selection of US Navy ships.

Osaka-Man an excellent seller. FAST shipping. Arrived in 7 days. A 6600 mile journey. Wasn't expecting for at least 3 weeks after ordering. Packaged well. Arrived intact. This will be my second Enterprise build. First one was 28 years ago. Having moved around multiple times it has seen better days. Recently retired I wanted to build it again. But first I need to complete (80% completed) the Tamiya 1/350 USS Missouri. Another excellent Tamiya ship model.Tamiya is known for very good quality and detailed models.

I'm 26 years old, have the typical office cubicle job, and I live with my girlfriend who bugs me when I come home. I needed something to do to get me distracted from her. Don't get me wrong, I still love her very much but love sucks. I thought about things that I liked to do when I was a kid and modeling was something I remember doing when I was young time to time. A couple months ago, I got back into it, and started with an AH-64 Apache, then to the Sherman tank, to the Tiger tank, and I went big with the 1/48 B-17F Memphis Belle. I had to go bigger and this mother trucker was the answer, the 1/350 USS Enterprise. My girlfriend was leaving for LA on Thursday, so I ordered this sucker on Tuesday with Amazon Prime. Boom baby, she came on Thursday and the other she, left to LA. She honestly would've freaked the hell out if this giant box arrived.Anyways, I get started and this whole project was just so damn cool from the very beginning. I absolutely recommend it! I know it's pricey, but she is worth it.I mainly wanted to write this review to give my recommendations before buying this:1) Make sure you have an airbrush, she will look like Guatemalan aircraft carrier if that country were to ever have one.2) This isn't the end of the road of taking money out of your wallet, be prepared to spend a lot of money for paint.3) Masking tape is crucial, if you can't expert the skill of getting straight lines with masking tape, buy "Snot Tape" - it's truly the bees knees.4) Optional: If you want your own cool set up of fighter planes, you have to buy separate packs of them, they're pretty cheap.5) Once you assemble the belly of the aircraft carrier, paint that whole part first.6) Also, paint the runway separately. Don't cement it together, just have something to temporarily hold them together.7) Oh and when you paint the runway, I mean paint the base, the lines, and the frame = just paint the whole damn thing.8) As you go along with assembling it together, make sure you know what to paint first before adding it to the aircraft carrier.9) The instructions manual is actually pretty damn awesome, the pages in the back tell you what color to paint each part with a chart.10) You're building an American aircraft carrier, go big or go home my fellow Americans!11) The United States of America > Everybody

A bit expensive, but my 14 year old son was look for this model exactly. It took him all summer.

This is a great kit for multiple reasons. First of, its a good buy, but it is expensive. If you are like me, you want the best looking model that your skills can turn out. This kit by itself is wonderful, and looking at the 600 something parts you may start to wonder if you should just give it back for fear that you will never be able to finish it. If you were on a no scratch building no photo etch no detail cruise control you could probably finish this in around two weeks, as long as you have experience in this field. But, if you were going to detail, this kit will take you 2 months to 10 years (the time that I spent on it and the time of a very detailed build) If you buy this beware, you need to scratch build a lot of details, and to get a super detailed Enterprise you will have to spend an extra 150 dollars in photo etch and decals to really make this kit come to life. So, this is a good buy and and a great mantlepiece.

This was by far my favorite model to build! The instructions were easy to follow and the amount of detail that was available with this set is outstanding!

Dream model build!!

I can't wait to start it! The detail looks real good, the aircraft leave a little to be desired, but throw in some trumpeter and everything will work and look real good. My problem is I made a promise to myself that I would finish BB 63 first. These are some of my favorites from the Nam era, and I did a tour there. My dad was on board the Handcock CVA 19, and my Uncle the Coral Sea CVA 43.