
I’ll post more on the new plans later when I’ve finished fully integrating them into the build, but they’ve already started helping me with placing and assembling the complex hangar deck walls.
Tonight I assembled the first three modules in FDR’s port side hangar walls, beginning at the stern. They consist of a roller door, and flat section with a roller door in the center, and a recessed section, again, with a roller door. what distinguishes the midway class is that the hangar walls are not continuous and in this first section, all three roller doors are recessed at different levels. The forward one is what I will refer to as fully recessed, the middle one is not recessed at all, and after one is recessed but only a small amount. I chose to represent the first and third with the roller doors only slightly down, and the middle all the way down.
While the plans are helpful, close examination of photographs is indispensable in figuring out what exactly is going on here. The below photographs, two of FDR, and one of midway, show the doors on FDR in October 1945 and January 1946 in New York Harbor, and Midway in the same period, and clearly show all three doors.


Often models help out with questions like this, and that was the case here – but only in oart. After deciphering what I thought the plans showed, I looked at the old Revell model (behind the building dock in the top photo), and while the rolling doors are primitive, they are there, and the recesses are where they are supposed to be. on the other hand, the 1/700 Loose Cannon 1945 Midway doesn’t have the configuration right at all – there are no places for two of the hangar doors, much less doors.

Of course as I type this I’m already seeing changes that need to be made, but I expect that working with such a complex surface!
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