 Hello everybody Hooded Corporate Commander 788 here and this is a video that I hope will be a service to the GI Joe collecting community. I am going to show you how to assemble the 1985 GI Joe aircraft carrier, the USS Flag. The USS Flag is a very large place set, in fact it's the largest place set ever made and just assembling it is a major project, but we're going to go through it one step at a time and show you how it's done. You can assemble it on a floor, but if it's on the floor, it's going to be hard to see some of the details and the features. It does display best if it's on a table top. The space that I'm working with is a little less than 8 feet, there's really only a couple inches to spare on the front and the back, but I have assembled the USS Flag on this space before and I know it will work. The USS Flag has a lot of parts, so many parts that it can be hard to keep track of. I made a list of the parts that I put in this blue binder, including pictures of the parts that I got from the internet and I would cross off each one to make sure that I had everything. I'm going to be following the manufacturer's instruction sheets to assemble this place set. Now if you don't have these, you can find copies of them on the internet. The instructions I ask you to do is assemble the gun turrets and the radar dishes. Now I do not disassemble the gun turrets, there's really no reason to, plus there's a risk of breakage if you keep taking them apart and putting them back together. But it's pretty self-explanatory. The barrel goes into the gun body, which goes on the body of the turret itself and the turret will connect to the ship by these three very small prongs and those can break off very easily, so watch out for that. This turret, sorry the barrel, can kind of slide down in there like that, but you're going to want to extend that before you put it on the ship. These two radar dishes though, they do have these little tiny white antennae that connect on those and those are always popping off and ending up at the bottom of a box. So those are frequently missing parts, but just make sure those go into the radar dishes and those are assembled. Next we're going to need the bow of the ship. This piece here and one of the gun turrets and one of the radar dishes is going to fit on here. Gun turret here, radar dish here. And you just connect them with the pegs in the spaces where they go. There you go, just pop that on there and swing it around and pop one of the radar dishes on the other side. Next we need this bow support piece and you will know this is the right piece because it says bow right there on it. This lip along the back end of the bow hull and on this side is going to run in between these teeth here on the support piece. Once you have the bow support piece on, there will be a slot on the port side, this slot, and it's going to be very important that that be on the correct side. So make sure you have that lined up properly when it's assembled. Next we have two anchors and you will put the anchors in kind of sideways and then turn them and they'll hang like that. Same thing on the other side. Now both anchors in. Next we're going to turn our attention to the fan tail which has two main pieces, this one and this one. And you're going to put these together. This L shaped slot here lines up with this post and of course these, the slot right here, lines up with this and you just line those up and you pretty much can't go wrong. Just slide that on and that should fit on pretty securely. The fan tail section has a space for two guns and one radar dish. The first gun goes over here, just line that up and pop it in and the radar dish goes in this spot, pop that in and finally the third gun goes over here. Next we have this stern support piece which looks a lot like the bow support piece but it does say stern on there and this goes around here and it assembles much the same way as the bow support piece did and like the bow support piece on the port side of the ship there will be a slot on that side so you do need to make sure that is assembled with that on the correct side. Just line it up and slide it on there, it should slide on pretty easily. If you're having to force it then you may not be doing right, back it out and try again. Now set the bow and the stern on opposite ends of the table and we don't know exactly what their position will be yet because we still have to assemble the rest of the ship but this is a good time to just set them as far apart from each other as possible. Now it's time to assemble the main support beams and I've set them up more or less the way they will be configured. This is piece C, this is piece B, they are marked and piece B has these slots here for this smaller piece. Piece C does not have that, you can tell the difference that way. I'm going to go ahead and assemble this piece to piece B by lining up these L shaped tabs. Now be careful with these, these L shaped tabs can break off pretty easily. They should be able to line up and then slide down like that and they should go on pretty easily. Now I'm going to connect the main support truss to support piece B with these same kind of L shaped tabs. Line those up in the slots, again being very careful, those are very thin pieces of plastic and they can break. And now piece C is added on the other end in much the same way. Just line up those tabs very gently and carefully slide them on and there you go. Now you have the main support assembly that's done and that's going to be kind of the mid section of the ship. Part C is at the back end and part B is toward the front end. Next the instructions ask you to put on this very long thin strip of plastic. This is our hole skirting. This allows the ship to look like it has a hole when actually it doesn't. Pieces B and C each have a slot. On piece B it is right here and on piece C it is right here and that plastic strip is going to slide in those and line up on both of those slots. It can sometimes be difficult to get that plastic strip to slide easily through those slots. So be patient and don't give up. At this point the instructions ask you to put that plastic strip in these slots on the stern and on the bow which we talked about before. That's why they need to be on the same side of the ship. But you really actually can't tell how far the bow and the stern should be from the central support system until you have the deck plates on. So I really think you should put the deck plates on first. Putting on the deck plates is probably the most fun because it's when the ship really starts to take shape. The bow deck plate has the 99 sticker on it. We'll do that first. Now this 99 sticker is usually put on the other way. It's kind of upside down on mine. Most USS flags have the 99 sticker so that when you're facing the front of the ship it looks like a 99 reading it from your direction. But mine are flipped around. These spaces in the grooves on the underside of the deck plate will line up with the edge of the bow hull. It goes on as simply as that and for now there's nothing really to hold it on. We will get to that in a minute. Now we're going to put on the next deck plate which goes behind the bow deck plate and the front end of it is going to rest on the bow support piece and the back end of it is going to rest on piece B which was part of our support assembly over here. And you will have to work with this a little bit to get them lined up. Now on the front you can see it has three square holes right here and the same thing on the back and those are going to line up with the corresponding holes on the support pieces. Now we're going to put on the next deck plate this one and the front end is going to rest on the bow support and the back end is going to rest on part B which is part of our support assembly. Now there's a notch right here on this smaller piece and that's going to line up with this hole here on the underside of that. And then these holes here we've got three in the front and three in the back and those are going to line up with the holes on the support pieces. It may take a little work to get those lined up but be patient and take your time. Now we have to put on the midship deck plate this one. This is the largest piece of this play set. It is big, it is heavy and it has to be lined up much the same way as the previous deck plates so really take your time with this. It has three of these holes in the front end it has another three in the back end those are going to line up with the holes on the support piece B and way back on the stern support piece so it's very important that you line those up. You really will have to work with this one. These pegs in piece C will line up with holes in the bottom of the deck plate. There is no easy way to do this so just take your time and keep walking around it and make sure everything is lined up. The stern deck plate will line up much the same as the other deck plates it's got two holes here and those will line up with the corresponding holes on the support piece. Just line those up and it should fit on pretty easily and just take your time just make sure everything is lined up. This is really your last chance to check and make sure that all of your deck plates are lined up properly. If your deck plates are lined up properly these holes in the deck plates should line up pretty well with the holes and the support pieces under them. You should be able to see the holes in the support piece right under the holes in your deck plates. You got them there and then down here make sure those are lined up looks like these are not lined up perfectly well. There we go that's a little better so those got all lined up and then finally the ones here on the front make sure those line up right and then once all those are lined up you're ready to connect all of these pieces together. You will attach the deck plates to the body of the ship with these deck clips. These clips are small they're easily lost and there are 16 of them. Now you might get by if you're missing one or two but it's really better to have all of them to make sure that your deck plates don't shift around. If your deck plates are lined up properly you should be able to just press them in and they will attach. Just repeat that for the other 15 until they are all in. With the deck plates assembled it's really starting to look like an aircraft carrier. Now we will assemble the elevator. The elevator goes in this cut out section of the deck here and you will need the elevator deck. You will need this large support piece. You'll have two smaller support pieces and then this very long thin piece of plastic. These holes on the deck plates right here should line up with these tabs on the top of these support pieces. Now a couple of the tabs are broken off on mine but we should still be able to get them to line up okay. These support pieces have slots on one side of them and these slots should face the outside of the ship. These side supports appear to be identical so you don't have to worry about which one goes on which side. You have more of these L shaped tabs which go on the slots on the larger support piece so just put both side support pieces on like that. Once the side supports are on put the whole assemblage under the deck plates lining up these tabs. The side support pieces have these holes and that is where you're going to put this support bar. Now we can put on the elevator deck and the elevator deck has these three tabs on this side, one on each end and another one in the middle and those will line up with these slots. It also has tabs on each side and those will line up with these slots on these side supports. That's a lot of tabs and slots to line up. Once it's on I prefer to leave the elevator in the up position. While we're at this in we might as well put the landing and bow ladder in its place. Now we can begin assembling the superstructure starting with this very large piece and this piece just slots directly onto the flight deck, you can get it lined up right and it should slide right on. If lined up correctly these holes in the superstructure should line up with the holes in the deck. Next this deck piece will fit right on that superstructure and it's not exactly obvious how this is supposed to line up but if you keep working with it you should get it to kind of fall right into place. And capping the whole thing off is this superstructure top and it does have a few tabs on it for you to precisely line that up. At this point we have assembled all the large pieces of the play set. Now what's left to assemble is a lot of really small pieces. First put on the deck ladder just slides in like that and into those two notches on the lower deck. This top deck railing has a hole for each of these posts so that just lines up like so. Just line them all up and pop them in should fit in pretty easily. This lower deck railing has an end piece so you just get that lower deck railing lined up much the same as the upper deck railing. Line those posts up and then make sure you put the end piece on and it should slot in the end like that and there you go. My radome is already on that's another part that I do not disassemble when I take the flag apart. While we're on this side of the ship this is a good time to put these Y pins in here on these holes on the superstructure and those will go straight through the holes on the deck plate. Let's talk about the antenna. This is an amazingly complex antenna with a lot of parts. Be careful of the caps on these pieces those can come off and go missing as well as the cap that goes on the top of the antenna assembly because they have these long slots that kind of just fit together. Once the antenna mast is assembled put the cap on it to hold it together. The instructions have these other antenna pieces going a particular way but they do look interchangeable so you could probably put these on any way you wanted to. This is what the antenna array should look like when it's assembled. There's a slot on the bottom of the antenna assembly that lines up with a notch in this hole on the very top of the superstructure. Just line that up and slide it in the side and you can put the flag post in this hole so you have the flag on the flag. The missile box which I already have assembled should clip onto the turret like that and that should elevate and rotate pretty easily. Then you can place six orange missiles in the missile box. This is what the missile launcher looks like fully loaded. This is the crane. This is another piece that I keep assembled even when the flag is in storage and the crane has an engine cover that is frequently lost so make sure you do have your engine cover and this crane is going to go in this hole on the deck and it's just going to push right on there and then it will rotate and of course you can use your crane. The propeller bar clips to the blast shield like so and this end goes through these holes in the bottom and then that hole assembly once you get that in there goes into this rectangular space on the deck and just press it in. These boat lift arms I usually leave on here. I don't really see a reason to take these off when the ship is disassembled. It has some hooks and tabs on the bottom here and you can line these up. This is a little bit tricky but you line those up and you put that on like so. Holds on runk really solidly. This boat here the Admiral's launch has a couple holes on each end here and you just line those up with the boat lift arms and you can attach that and that can be ready to launch when the Admiral wants to leave the boat and go out to sea. Let's put on the arrester cable. There's a spot for each end and although these look similar there's one end that has a peg on it and that will go on this side so you essentially just line up the tabs with the holes in the deck and press them in until they're on and then you can adjust the string by just kind of pulling on it through this loop here. It's looped through either end and then that works with the tail hook which you could connect to a sky striker jet and then you could use the arrester cable. At this point the instruction sheet has you assemble the small vehicles that come with the play set. Of course I keep them assembled but do pay attention this yellow cart vehicle comes with an engine cover and this hook on the end which I do take off so just put that on like so. This knob is supposed to be facing up and that can connect to the fuel tanker here at the bottom and of course it can pull the fuel tanker around and the fuel tanker of course has a couple of fuel pumps and hoses you'll have to be careful that those don't come off but those more or less I just keep those assembled even when the flag is in storage. Let's work on the interior there are these slots for walls this is the A wall it's the shortest one and that goes in this slot here and that slide that in and it should stay in pretty securely. The C wall is this long one with this sort of half door and that goes in this slot here again just kind of slide that in once you line it up it should go pretty well into that slot and stay quite securely. The B wall looks a lot like A but it's a little bit longer and just find the slot for that down here and slide that in there you go. The D wall is the only one with the full door and that one slides in this slot right here and that's the last of them once this one goes in you're ready to move on. In this forward lower section we have a console that tabs in very very close to the wall there and then we have a chair the one with the long post it looks a lot like one of the other chairs but the other chair has a short post the chair with the long post goes in this hole right there then there's this ladder that connects to the upper deck there are a couple slots in the bottom of the upper deck you slide that into on that upper deck we have the bridge and for the bridge we have this very long very large computer console that goes along the front edge there just line up the tabs and that should secure on there pretty well this smaller computer console goes to the back wall lines up with holes in the floor the captain's chair goes here the admiral's console goes right here and that can rotate and then the helm clips on right here push that in this tiny purge valve goes in this hole right here and then you have this support beam and this there's a slot for it in the on the ceiling there and in the floor and put that in there and that will complete the bridge just outside the bridge we have a space for another ladder that just goes on there and leads to this upper section just outside the bridge we have a space for another ladder which connects to the upper section just put it on like that in this space just behind the bridge we have a computer console that goes along the wall and it fits in a couple holes in the floor that should go in pretty securely there and this right here is for that chair with the short post put that in there and that section is good to go moving back to the lower deck we have this bomb and missile rack that goes in this section here and it doesn't fit too well but if you work with it you can get it back there and then we have one more ladder moving back around to the back of the ship no I haven't forgotten about it it's the infamous fantail railing which just fits in right there and last but not least the final part that I acquired to complete my USS flag the often forgotten speaker system now there's a knob here on the side of the superstructure and a slot here in the back and that's so you can hang the speaker and the microphone on the place that was the assembly of the USS flag aircraft carrier I sincerely hope this video is a resource for collectors keep checking back with this channel for vintage GI Joe toy review