Tailspin Turtle

For what it’s worth the F4H’s bespoke tanks (370 and 600 gallon) went through a similar evolution. The original tanks were designed by McDonnell. They were later replaced by tanks with a constant diameter in the midsection, presumably to reduce manufacturing cost. See https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/06/things-under-wings-f4h-f-4-phantom.html

https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/07/douglas-low-drag-external-fuel-tanks.html

Airplanes, helicopters, birds, insects, and gliders stay up by pushing air down (in the case of the glider, only in rising air). How and how much air they push down are just details.

I was at an air show at NASA Ames once upon a time (the Blues were flying A-4s). It was a lovely sunny day. There was an excellent representation of Navy airplanes in the static-display area. They were all gray/white and clean. No two greys were the exact same color or sheen.

I'm sure that the EA-3B had a plugged window frame aft of the one that had a round window in it, at least on the right side. I'm all but certain that the next window location was eliminated by the incorporation of the small bomb bay in the aft area of the cabin. Whether the last plugged window on each side was present is a definite maybe. It's there on the initial Douglas A3D-2P access-panel drawing.

https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2015/09/grumman-6a-vs-6e-intruder.html

https://clearpropmodels.com/uh-2a/bseasprite https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235069382-uh-2a-seasprite-172-clearprop/

Direct from Clearprop - their margin is better when you do that.

I just got one in the mail. In a word, brilliant! At first glance at what’s in the box, which for starters is first class, the parts are beautifully detailed inside and out (if any aftermarket company can find some feature that’s missing or shape that’s inaccurate, I will be very surprised); the multi-page instruction sheet is in color, detailed, and on high quality paper; photo-etched details are included where injection molding would be inadequate; and decals are provided for four different helicopters along with almost as many stencils as would be on an F-4, all of them readable with appropriate magnification and none of them bogus as near as I can tell (I did spot a typo with an 8X lupe while doing due diligence). The doors are molded in clear plastic, which minimizes the number of windows that have to glued into openings. A painting mask is available separately. I won’t have a chance to do more than fondle the plastic for the time being, so I can't comment on the fit or the adequacy of the assembly instructions, but the photos of a test build posted elsewhere suggest that a reasonably skilled modeler will be very pleased with the result.

It is hard to tell that an A-4F has received the Super Fox conversion: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/02/super-fox.html However, I’m not sure that the flange is unique to the Super Fox: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/08/a4d-skyhawk-one-more-time.html

My most recent look at this: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2012/10/painting-crush-points-red.html Note that they rarely (never) have the red edge on the gear doors even when the slat wells are red.

For what it’s worth, the Bell HSL was the first helicopter with the autopilot capability for dipping sonar: http://tommythomason.com/books/Bell-HSL/

👍

My F4H-1/F-4A monograph is well regarded but expensive. It was preceded by a couple of posts on one of my blogs that may suffice for most modelers with regard to sorting out the differences among the F-4As, particularly the first 18. See https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/05/early-phantom-iis-redux.html. There is a link in it to the preceding post.

The fairing after the tailhook was only on a few early F4Hs and was removed from #1 at some point in 1958. The perforated spoilers were also replaced on #1 in 1958 but some F-4As were retired with them still present..