On 1 April 1942 sixteen modified B-25B bombers were loaded aboard the USS Hornet CV-8. The next day the USS Hornet along with the ships of Task Force 18 sailed towards the Hawaiian Islands. They met up with the USS Enterprise and Task Force 16 then headed across the Pacific Ocean. On the morning of 18 April 1942 approximately 650 nautical miles from the Island of Japan, sixteen B-25B’s Led by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle launched off the Hornet’s deck to perform the first air operation to strike the Japanese mainland in retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor.
For this next build I am building Trumpeter’s 1/350 USS Hornet as she was during the Doolittle Raid. This is going to be a super-detailed project. It is being built to be displayed at a museum that is creating a display of the raid for the 80th anniversary. This project is estimated to take around 4 – 5 months to complete. There are many aftermarket accessories that will be utilized in this build. So far I have four different sets of photo etch parts just for the ship, a wooden deck, all the B-25B’s as well as all the aircraft that were stored in the hangar bay that were later moved to the flight deck after the bombers departed in case the Task Force was spotted and needed to defend itself. All of the aircraft have multiple photo etch sets for the cockpits and exterior details. I will also be illuminating it as well. I have many accessories still on order like 3-D printed Moto-Tugs and crew members. At the end of the project I will list all of the accessories I used. I also purchased two reference books. One on the USS Hornet itself and the other covers the Doolittle raid. I also located a shipbuilding drawing of the Yorktown class carriers that covers all the decks from keel to the top of the island. I scaled the hangar deck sheet to 1/350 scale and printed it out so that I can accurately place the interior walls and other details.
Starting with the hangar I began using the White Ensign Hangar bay photo etch set (#3541). The instructions give you sizes and plans to scratch build the hangar bay walls. I installed the hangar deck then painted it deck grey and gave it a basic weathering. I will be doing more weathering/staining once I figure out the layout of the aircraft. Using Evergreen Models 1.0mm styrene sheets I cut out the parts for the interior walls per the hangar bay detail set instructions. I have a few sheets of extra doors and rails from previous ship sets so after building the walls I added photo etch doors, stairs and rails to match the reference photos. The kit walls have numerous ejector pin marks. Instead of filling and sanding all of them I opted to use sheets of 0.5mm sheets to cover them. Also, since I will be illuminating the hangar bay I cut open many of the hangar bay side doors. With the starboard side interior walls assembled per the photo etch set instructions I added all the fine details as they are shown in the photos from the reference book.
After adding details to the forward elevator bay I did some detail work on the bow. One of the obvious things missing from the model details is the bow mooring guides. I used some styrene tubing to make these. I then reshaped the anchor chain holes. On the kit these were just straight thru holes. I used a file to make them angled and flared. I removed the molded chain and will be replacing it with a real anchor chain. There are two supports for the front of the flight deck. I filled the mounting holes for the kit plastic ones and installed the correctly sized photo etch parts from the White Ensign Detail set (#3525). Working on getting the starboard side interior detailed and installed this coming week.

See more photos and details in my build log at https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-350-uss-hornet-cv-8-doolittle-raid/

14 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Incredible start, David.
The size of this build and amount of additional parts is really overwelming.
Looking forward to the progress on this one.

Your work area is too neat. You'll never get it done.
Kidding and jealous of course. Work is great so far. That's going to be one great Museum piece.

Building a ship like this in 1/350 will be a real challenge, David (@davids_models). Your additional decals and lighting are really cool. This will be fun to follow.

Looking awesome to include all those lights David @davids_models
There's definitely a large amount of PE available.

Amazing job done there, @davids_models!

This week the work on the USS Hornet was limited. I was “forced” by my lovely Wife to spend a relaxing weekend on the lake fishing. We both had a great time and caught many fish!
Anyhow, back to the build. I finished up the aft elevator and the fantail of the ship. I then moved on to some aircraft. During the trip across the Pacific the Hornet had its normal compliment of aircraft packed on the hangar deck while the B-25B’s remained on the flight deck. I need to build all these aircraft so I can finish the hangar deck. I purchased all of the photo-etch for these aircraft. Both Tom’s Model Works and White Ensign Models provide sets. The Tom’s provides landing gear, antennas, and propellers for each aircraft. White Ensign has some cockpit details (like the rear gunner for the SBD’s) as well as flaps for the aircraft. I decided to start with the F4F Wildcats of “Fighting 8”. Using the F4F that came with the kit I built it up to the point it was ready for decals. One of the things I noticed was they have a hole for the landing gear that comes on the tree. Since I was using the photo-etch landing gear I took a small drill bit the diameter of the main gear wheels and drilled into the fuselage to create the wheel wells that are on the real aircraft. I looked at using the photo-etch cockpit pieces but the canopy is very small and thick. You would not see any detail at all. So I opted to just paint the interior green and flat black for the instrument panel under the canopy. For the propeller I need to make the shaft into the engine. The hole in the propeller and hub are 0.5mm as well as the on the aircraft cowl. I took a 0.5mm fiber optic strand and used a lighter to melt the end slightly to make it the propeller hub cap. The propeller hub then blades were slid on and painted. The landing gear and antenna on the dorsal behind the cockpit were added. It was base coat painted for the intermediate blue and grey scheme. With interior green for the wheel wells and white for the main gear struts and hubs. I then took the other 17 aircraft and created an assembly line. I am building them up until the point of adding the photo-etch. As soon and all 17 are at this point I will add the photo-etch details and then paint them. After they are built up I will use the individual aircraft decals that are part of the Starfighter Decals Hornet set.

See more photos and details from the start in my build log at https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-350-uss-hornet-cv-8-doolittle-raid/

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.

I agree with our friend @johnb, @davids_models: not bsf at all to be forced by wife to have some time off!
Your progress on the Hornet is great, your detailed work sets this project apart.