HMS Ark Royal, Gulf War Fit
Revell - 1/700

By: Mike Dunn

The last of the three Invincible-class light aircraft carriers, also known for political reasons as through-deck cruisers, the Ark Royal differs from her sisters in various ways. These differences, and the resulting changes between this kit and those of HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious can be found on this page. While it has to be acknowledged that the Admiralty used the basic hull design of this class for HMS Ocean, she has quite a number of changes, and is therefore a class on her own (at this time, at any rate).

So, what do you get for your money? There is a 12-page instructions booklet (only the end page is blank), a decal sheet, and six sprues in five bags. Sprue A is the largest, and consists of the two-part hull (not waterline, although she could easily be converted) and the island. Moulding is crisp and clean, with good detailing, and very little flashing. Unless otherwise noted, all sprues are of this quality. Sprue B has the main decking, together with detailing parts for the island (eg, radar masts, domes, etc). Sprue C appears twice, and holds parts such as the prop shafts and props, rudders, 2 Sea Harriers each, a Sea King each, various davits and boats, rescue canisters, and the hull supports. Sprue D has the title plate and base. Sprue E has the bow deck, and the launch ramp, together with other detailing parts for the island. The last sprue is Sprue b (yup, small b), holding another helicopter, various davits and boats, guns and missiles, etc. While a few of the parts are optional to install, the choice just appears to be between a bare dish or a rounded cover.

Looking at the decals, they are just for the Ark Royal - hardly surprising, seeing as Revell do the 'Vince as another kit (only now, in late 2000, do we also get an Illustrious - see the comparison review of the three Invincible class kits). Back to the decals - while some are quite small, the printing is of a good quality. Note that some decals, mainly those indicating distance along the flight deck, are required to be superimposed on other decals. There is little excess decal sheet on all except the RAF roundels and the four curved red lines. In fact, the only problems I have with the decals is that there are 12 roundels for the aircraft, with instructions for two per Sea King, and four per Sea Harrier - with two Sea Kings and four Sea Harriers, it doesn't take a genius to work out that they are eight short....... In addition, I can find no mention of the location of decals 26, 34, 36 and 37, although both the box art and instructions cover photo both show a White Ensign (either 26 or 36) on the forward radio mast. I guess the roundels are immaterial, for as long as you don't allow anyone to look under the wings of the Sea Harriers, you just have enough. This is an area that awaits a 3rd-party company to come in - I, for one, would be on their customer list.

As mentioned, the instructions are 11 pages of a 12-page booklet. The cover is a photo of the prototype model, with some history and armament details of the ship. Pages 2, 3 and 4 are multi-lingual warnings, with the various paints and instruction icons listed on page 5 (again, multi-lingual). Page 6 shows the various sprues, with some areas blanked out on sprues B and C, and most of sprue b is also blanked (I think about 25 parts out of about 120 are used). The remainder of the page lists procedures 1 to 5 (aircraft, island and deck). Page 7 shows procedures 6 to 10 (hull, adding the island & deck, detailing the island). Page 8 details procedures 11 to 16 (more island detailing, the foredeck, emergency equipment), with page 9 finishing the assembly instructions with procedures 17 to 20 (more emergency equipment, and the under-hull). Page 10 shows how to mount the ship for a stand-alone display, with the decals and main paint scheme finishing with page 11. Small-part paint schemes appear as & when required in the various procedures. Overall, these schemes appear to be clear and concise. As long as the painting and assembly instructions are carried out in order, there should be no confusion.

The box art is an artist's impression of the Ark Royal in the Gulf, weathering and all. The side panels have colour photos of the prototype, and concentrate on the bow, bridge, rear flight deck and under-hull. Personally, I would have preferred photos of the Ark herself from this time period, but these are acceptable.

I like this kit. It has clean moulding, requiring little clean-up work; the moulded detail is OK for those who don't want to be super-accurate about, eg, deck chains or demarcation lines; the small parts are as accurate as you can expect; the decals are good (apart from the above reservations). I am a little surprised at the low number of aircraft provided (2 Sea Kings, 4 Sea Harriers), especially when you consider her normal complement is 9 Sea Kings and 8 Sea Harriers, with this increasing to 13 Sea Harriers during emergencies/wars; an order to WEM for extra aircraft is required, I think, and the modern Royal Navy PE extras wouldn't come amiss either. Overall, a kit that will make a good addition to a display cabinet when built straight out of the box, or a wonderful example with PE super-detailing.