I have wanted to model the carrier Yorktown (CV-5) as it appeared at Midway for a long, long time. My 
first Yorktown was a 1/700 Tamiya Enterprise kit from high school days (at left), which I still have, albeit the worse for wear from 30+ years in attic and boxes. I also repainted a 1/600 Aurora Enterprise as a Yorktown (shown at right with my new CV-6 from the same kit). The "Y" on the stack was not a camouflage error, by the way 
– I was convinced that the black "Y" would "bleed through" the wartime camouflage, so I did a subtle "Y" of my own. Of course I was wrong, but there was a reason behind it.
During law school I bought a Revell 1/480 Yorktown kit, but never got very far on it – but I remember it being in the model closet in Waco, and it's still on the storage shelf in the current workshop 27 years later.
After law school when I came up with a pretty good Tamiya Enterprise backdated to its Midway appearance and had completed a Tamiya Hornet I bought another Enterprise kit to build a December 1940 Yorktown in its prewar paint scheme, also shown at left.
I put in a hangar deck, a full hangar load of 1/700 aircraft, and a number of small figures. I also 
backdated the AA outfit to its prewar .50 cal. armament with Hasegawa Essex 20mms representing 50 cals with canvas covers, and included a full set of photoetch railing. I never quite finished it, but it's pretty close – every time I try to figure out what I had not done, I can't find anything other than the top deck of the island, which is missing railings and some other small details. 
I bought another Tamiya Enterprise to build a June 1942 Yorktown, but other than starting on closing up a couple of openings 
on the flight deck ramp, I never started on it.
In the last couple of years I began to read that the Tamiya kit was significantly underscaled (compare Tamiya and Trumpeter flight decks below
), as well as inaccurate in numerous details, both large and small. There are now at least three new Yorktown-class kits available in 1/700, and I decided to try out the Trumpeter as a June 1942 CV-5. 
It appears to be a pretty good kit – I have already started assembling and working on the two-tone Measure 12 (okay, it's three, but just barely) camouflage. Navy Blue straight out of the bottle is way too dark for a faded Sea Blue (5-S) so that'll be replaced in coming days, and a black waterline plate added. 
But Parker and I are having fun – while I'm working on a legit Yorktown, he's working on one of his little adorables – a Meng Lexington (CV-2). 
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