Seaking, re ensign, is it in the right place, this is the Manila Ark
Hi Rich,
I see your question has been sidestepped and not without good reason I've spent a fair amount of time searching for shots of the old girl at sea and while there are plenty of these, they are usually at the wrong angle to see where the ensign is! I'd tend to agree with your anxiety that it looks at 'half mast' on the model but note also that the foremast on the real thing bore no resemblance to the one on the model, being a rather complex 'mish mash' of yardarms and aerials and not the 'sanitized' depiction modelled.
It looks a bit low and probably is but given that the foremast isn't totally accurate either, it'll do
Ref the foremast, you're right that it isn't a particularly accurate rendition. This is due to a combination of not having any accurate plans for that area (I had to work from photos and it's a nightmare trying to figure out what's what) a desire to keep the poly count relatively low, and a general fear for my sanity! If anyone has any decent drawings of that area please share them if only for interest, I might even consider remodelling it some time!
Worryingly I've also just realised I missed out the wave-guides for the fore and after bedstead radars!
It's infuriating isn't it mate When I was in the RN, the last thing you'd want to be found doing was taking phots of ships (especially RN ones!!) but what I wouldn't give to have my time again PLUS.. have a digital camera handy. Not only were there no digital cameras, the personal computer was a thing of the future so it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Now we have all these things (and flightsim) all the b1oody ships have gone :sad:
It looks ok and as you rightly say, to have attempted a facsimile of the real thing would have upped the poly count I'm hoping that one day, I stumble over a decent set of plans for a County Class Destroyer so me old mate Rick can knock one up in FSDS :shock:
You want frustrating, several years ago I had a load of copies of some modelling magazines my Dad had had in the '60s. Including a full set of plans for a County class, and the Eagle as originally built (would have been ideal for the Ark's hull) where are they now? Apparently my Mum threw them out years ago!!!
As for taking photos of RN ships, I seem to have a rather detailed set of shots for a modern RN deck tractor that I waited until a Saturday morning alongside to take!
I hear you well guys, I have searched high and low for pics of the Ark when I first thought of this, I had a few of my own, I was lucky enough to have a real set of flight deck plans that were taken from the upper hangar on the Ark.
Skippy in my mind did such a job on this one as he says he had very little to go on but she turned out great, and I was taxing my memory banks lol......Did you ever notice on most pics of the Ark, it always showed only the port side.
Having said that, I'll have another hunt round in my shoeboxes of old pics and see if I can find some of the mast detail.
Dave I agree, I cannot imagine what's it's like to be in the RN now, with computers and cell phones, in my day you waited for the old Gannet COD to come into view jam packed with mail. When I got into port somewhere it was get $20 worth of quarters and make your person to person call to you familywhen you get connected you stood there and piled in the money, and of course we can't foget the trousers and the 22in bottoms flapping in the wind..........where did all the years go !!!
Where indeed did those years go :roll: I might still have a pair of bellbottoms somewhere!
This shot was taken off South Africa (a mail drop by SAAF Shack) on our way to Rio where, coincidentally, we met up with the Ark group.. Apr '75. That was to be the last time I saw her in commission :sad: Apologies to those who have seen this shot before.
Last time I saw the Blake, she was in the scrapyard down the Forth and missing most of her upper structure :crying:
Nice shot of another old girl, Apr '75 Dave. I don't have much left of the RN but I still have my "housewife and name type in wood" we were issued with at Ganges.
Sometimes it proved "fun" on the Ark, here's a shot when we were having a bit of "roughers"
Of all the models I built in my time I never ever saw one made of the Ark IV not even Airfix. There was a guy that built an amazing model though, a huge one. I'm not sure how big it is but must be at least a few feet long.
The details he got in was amazing.
Smashing.. absolutely smashing.. love em to bits That first shot in particular just has 'Come on then!!' written all over it.
Interestingly, you can see where the sea ensign should be.. vague but visible in the first shot.. bang on in the last shot and that model shows exact placement of the halyard as well as the aforementioned complexity of both masts.
Don't the modern carriers look crap by comparison :madhead:
The F4 and the Bucc look like the Tamiya 1/100 scale kits to me, there's not enough detail in them for 1/72 and the Phantom doesn'thave the RWR fairing on the fin top, a characteristic of the Tamiya kit. That does make the Ark model huge for sure!
My 1/144 scale model of the Atlantic Conveyor (months or years away from launching I'm afraid...) is over 5 ft long even at that smaller scale!
The model is actually in the Fleet Air Arm museum (I took some photos for reference) it is quite large! Obviously this means I really should have realised where the sea ensign should have been, errr but I'm a wafu so I didn't realise. Sounds like a plausible excuse to me!
I've spent a fair amount of time searching for shots of the old girl at sea and while there are plenty of these, they are usually at the wrong angle to see where the ensign is! 
I'd tend to agree with your anxiety that it looks at 'half mast' on the model but note also that the foremast on the real thing bore no resemblance to the one on the model, being a rather complex 'mish mash' of yardarms and aerials and not the 'sanitized' depiction modelled.
:sad: 
