This set is the largest Lego or Megabloks model set I know of. It totals in at 1700 pieces, and the box, a fairly large one, is absolutely jam packed. The packers at Ritvik must hate it, since they have to do the packing carefully in order to get everything in!
There are two main new special pieces introduced for this ship. The first is the piece used for the deck plates. This is sort-of like an 8x12x1/2 tile. Each has a 1x2 studded region on each corner, and regular 1x2 tiles fit flush on those studs. This allows a pair of 2x2 tiles to join a set of 4 deck plates. The second special piece is the small F-14 jet, 8 of which are included. Also, the crane piece, seen on the rear half of the right-hand side, is new to me.
The main body of the ship is built in 3 pieces, which are then joined together as units. This is similar to the 2 pieces of the battleship set. The difference here, however, is that the 3 pieces are built and joined upside down. This works best because the deck of an aircraft carrier is its largest width and length, and the deck provides a nice solid base to build on.
The instruction book, as usual for the ProBuilder series, contains instructions only for the main model, plus single photos of two alternate models. The book has 56 pages and 130 steps. Several steps have a number of substeps. For example, the step for a rocket launcher platform has 17 substeps, two of which have 2 subsubsteps.
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the complete underside (thanks Don!) |
These shots compare the #9780 USS Kittyhawk with the older #9760 Battleship.