Step one: Pick which ship and what era you want to build. The flavor of the airwing generally drives me in that direction. There are so many differences from Nimitz 1975 to any of them 2016 that to describe them all would be giant undertaking.
There are a couple of good books but the best references are Ray Bean's DVDs
http://www.stillmotionsphotographics.co ... ographics/I know I sound like a broken record on these threads but these DVDs are worth all of the books that you could buy from a modelers perspective. I spent a lot of money on the squadron series and other reference books and if you are looking for pics to refer to to build one of these ships, this is what you need. Friedman's U.S. Carriers is the one stop shop for information and interesting factoids but not many pics for modeling.
I made this diagram to give a general feel for the transformation of the class. I am not going to talk about Reagan or Bush here. Those two are way different and deserve there own thread. Also, there were many other changes after the RCOH Process began with Nimitz in 2005 that I am not going to capture here.
1. The island shape stayed the same. NIMITZ and Ike got a CIWIS platform in the mid 80s. There was some adding/re-arranging of the mk95 directors. The mast shape changed and SATDOME's started appearing in the late 80's into the 90's.
2. Aft Mast changed for all of them throughout the history of the ships. There are a couple of PE Sets that capture these changes. Nimitz and Ike traded SPS-43 for SPS-49 Radar.
3. Port FWD CIWIS Platform was added to Nimitz and Ike and as commissioned for CVN-70+. I am aware of at least 3 different shapes depending on time frame and the ship.
4. Stbd FWD CIWIS Platform stayed the same for Nimitz and Ike. CVN-70+ got an additional CIWIS Station here which changed the shape of the platform.
5. Port Aft Nato Sea Sparrow Platform was changed for Nimitz and Ike and CVN-70+ got a different layout that also included a CIWIS Station.
6. The Stbd Aft Platform stayed the same but an additional CIWIS Platform was added to Nimitz and Ike on the fantail and CVN-70+ had a slightly different CIWIS Platform on the fantail more off centered than Nimtz/Ike. Nimitz and Ike got the transom for docking against on the stern. CVN-70+ were commissioned that way.
Those are the big changes. There were various configurations for SATDOMES and other antenna along the way and I am sure that I missed a few others.
So pick which ship you want to build, get a ton of photos of those areas for both your pick and Nimitz as commissioned so that you can see what you have to do to the kit and have at it. Take one area at a time so that you don't get overwhelmed. It is not as hard as it might seem. The Trumpeter 1/700 kits are done pretty well and offer some guidance as to what has to be done for the other ships.
Good Luck!
Mark