Tailspin Turtle

More on the Panther/Cougar ejection seats here: https://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2014/07/grumman-f9ff-9-panther-and-cougar.html

Thanks for that - some possibilities: F9F-4s (Allison engine) and early F9F-5s had a rectangular door; the picture is fairly low resolution so the change in angle isn't obvious (I can see a slight angle in this one) or as apparent from this camera location relative to the airplane; early doors did not have as much of an angle (I have seen pictures of F9F-5s with no small NACA inlet aft of the smaller suck-in door so there was some tinkering going on during production).

It’s a formation or section light and it’s white, not red (there weren’t any anti-collision lights at the time). It’s slightly to the right of the centerline.

Also see the relationship of the suck-in doors and the NACA inlet here: http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/howard_mason/f9f-5_125295/

Since you’re going to that much trouble, note that the smaller door aft of that one is not rectangular. The upper side is angled “parallel” to the upward curve of the fuselage in the photo of F9F-5 differences here (also, I just noticed that the small NACA inlet is not apparent in the picture): https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-panther.html

A bit too much. See https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/F9F-5_Panther_of_VF-63_in_flight_1953.jpg

Further research revealed that these lights, one on top of the fuselage and the other on the bottom, were white.

That was the upper fuselage formation or section light. It probably had a transparent blue cover. It was almost certainly white. There was another on the belly. For more see, https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/03/exterior-lights.html

The big suck-in door (the centrifugal compressor required more air at low speed than could be provided by the engine inlet so this inlet opened to the plenum chamber surrounding the compressor) is marked with “no step” in the picture. The light is not an anti collision light - that came later after a midair of two airliners over the Grand Canyon; it may be a formation light but I’ll have to do a little research on that. Note that the pilot is facing aft on the fillet between the fuselage and the wing; I’m pretty sure that’s the underside of the open canopy just to the left of his right shoulde

More on the F9F-2 vs. F9F-5 here: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-panther.html and here: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2017/12/grumman.html As far as the cutoff of the lower aft corner of the bigger blow-in door is concerned, I can’t say unequivocally that no F9F-5s were delivered without it, but it seems unlikely.

For what it's worth: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/04/blue-angel-blue-and-gold-draft.html

Gene pretty much covered it. The reason closeup photos of the leading edge flaps down are rare is that they almost never were except for takeoff and landing and boundary layer air checks, which required the cockpit to be manned and the engines to be running. For what it’s worth, there was a hinge along the aft end of the lower surface and a narrow hinged plate on the aft end of the upper surface that folded down when the flaps were lowered to provide a smooth transition from the upper surface of the flap to the upper surface of the wing. Note that the ailerons also drooped along wi

I think they were both at Pima at one point. But the one with the reverser appears to have wound up at Pueblo: http://www.blueangels.org/Aircraft/Stick/F11/853/Stickm4_5.htm The one without was painted as a Blue Angel (it reportedly was one) and stayed at PIma. However, there were other F11Fs on display at Pima over time and I don't know which one you have pictures of (see http://www.blueangels.org/Aircraft/Stick/F11/Stickm4_2a.htm) The difference is pretty obvious if you can see the aft end...

As it happened, the F11Fs didn't even get the M-B seats in the training command. The only two that did had been pulled out of the desert for test of the Rohr inflight reverser program. There weren't any unexpired pyrotechnics for the Grumman seats by that point so the M-B seats were substituted. For an A-B test, one F-11 got the reverser installation and the other was stock.

The Hasegawa short nose conversion begins a little too far forward: see https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2010/11/f11f-tiger.html Also, in case you ignored the link in that post: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/10/f11f-tiger.html