While in the UK last year (2002) I was fortunate to be able to attend the annual IPMS Scalemodelworld Championships. At one of the trade stands, the above previously unknown kit (to me at least) was available. The scale is said to be 1:600 and it certainly looks right for 1:600. The manufacturer seems to be a firm called "Kitech", which I believe to be Chinese. They have previously issued small and large scale aircraft models, and possibly some 1:35 AFVs. This is the first ship model by this firm that I have seen.
Despite being a modeller of 1:700 scale ships, I purchased the model (at 7 odd UK pounds) as I had a vague idea I could convert it to 1:700 much as I had done to the Airfix HMS Fearless some years ago. Incidentally, the carrier is France's only remaining fixed wing carrier, replacing Foch and Clemanceau. Originally it was hoped by the French that a second carrier, with its powerful air wing would be built, but there was insufficient finance. As a nuclear powered 'big' carrier it makes an interesting comparison with the very much bigger American carriers and the only slightly larger Russian Admiral Kutznetzov. It certainly dwarfs the British Invincible class carriers.
The sturdy box contains a one piece full hulled carrier, with several sprues of other parts. The model is quite impressively big in this scale. The one piece flight deck is reasonably well detailed, as is the massive 'island', placed well forward on the starboard flight deck. There are two identical sprue sets to cater for parts that are made from two identical halves or are multiples eg the aircraft.
On this subject, there are many aircraft operated by this biggish carrier (with Super Etendards, Rafale Ms, Dauphin helicopters and Grumman E-2C Hawkeye AEW aircraft). The kit's small replicas appear reasonably accurate despite the scale. I suppose they could be criticized for being rather 'chunky' looking, but they're not bad.
There are two scale propellers, and related extension shafts and rudders, plus another non-scale propeller for the motorisation also offered. Most of the unique and somewhat bizarre features of this singular French nuclear powered carrier are offered in the kit, including the VLS rocket launchers, the long walkways mounted almost on the waterline, the numerous protruding 'galleries', the odd bulge aft and the immense and forward positioned 'island'.
Assembly would seem straightforward, with some cleaning required of a small number of poorly fitting parts and some finer items covered in flash. Generally, the motorisation feature (typical for many Chinese ship kits these days) makes assembly harder than it should be - if you omit these parts things move along faster! Fit problems are easily overcome, though a bit of filler will be required for those walkways and galleries, and many smaller parts require moulding faults removed. There are quite a few fiddly decals offered for parts of the complex French deck markings (though not the huge stripe-like arrow marking on the 'landing on' section of the flight deck) and I have yet to try them - previous experience with current Chinese kit decals has not been good for me. I HAVE tried the small ship's numbers and other markings applied to the 'island', and these worked quite well, so there is some hope!
All in all, this is recommended if you like 1:600 subject matter. I am intrigued that the KiTech kit came out not too long after the Heller kit of the same ship in the larger 1:400 scale - given the practice of some modern Chinese manufacturers to copy existing larger scale kits of the same subject, I did wonder if this kit was a reduced copy of the newish Heller 1:400 Charles de Gaulle; without the Heller kit I cannot say.
Conversion to 1:700 scale
As I mentioned above, it was always my intention to 'shrink' the kit to 1:700. I have been busily doing this over the Christmas break (although as usual the model has stalled since February!), and I have taken several photos as the model progresses - these may appear in APMA Journal or on the APMA Website once it is complete. No guarantee on this as my ability to complete any ship kit in recent years has been almost totally absent!
I have at least reduced the hull to waterline and discarded all the motorisation gear. I have cut several 5mm to 10mm sections from the modified hull and flightdeck (both longitudinally and laterally) and reglued these two sub-components together. I reduced the height and length of the island as I've built it up.
I am in the process of painting the almost complete island and mast structure, though I am bogged down a bit here as I am replacing the overscale and flash covered mast stanchion areas with stretched sprue and fuse wire. Matching together the reduced hull and deck is also proved difficult, but this has been done, and the deck has now been painted.
I've even 'scaled down' several aircraft including two Rafales, one Dauphin and one Etendard. I'll probably substitute Hawkeyes from an Italeri 1:720 scale US carrier kit, rather than go to the trouble of modifying the chunky KiTech examples. I also have a photo of the Charles de Gaulle training with some French Army Puma helicopters, and two German Navy Seakings; this could offer a quicker way to populate the somewhat empty 1:700 deck of my model! More news on these later.

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