Tailspin Turtle

The tanks were removable and replaced with wingtip fairings but not jettisonable (the fuel in them could be dumped - the motive force to do so was provided by the hole in the nose of the tank). The Blues originally intended to fly displays without the tanks and only install them to fly longer distances between venues. The time required to remove/replace them and lack of notable performance improvement without them quickly disabused the team leader of that concept. Plus at some point it was realized that you could put colored water in the tanks for a cool visual effect.

As you wish: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2018/04/nael-f9f-2kd.html

Shipboard installations here refer to the catapult and arresting gear (including the barriers/barricades) systems although there were other odds and ends. This sort of testing is where obsolescent or otherwise unwanted Navy airplanes like this F9F went to be useful before being scrapped. In this case, it was used to test the new nose-tow catapult system introduced with the E-2 and the A-6. A stricken AJ Savage was also involved in the test program.

Blue

Reading between the lines of the Oriskany operational report for November 1952, the F9Fs assigned to CAP might have been clean, i.e. no pylons, for best performance. In any event, only the three outboard Aero 14A were generally carried since the big inboard Mk51 pylon created too much drag and it was labor intensive to install and remove them on a daily mission basis. Pictures aren't much help, with a lot of variance in F9F pylon configuration. Illustrations of the VF-781 airplanes leave off all the pylons. With respect to color, the difference in yellow and green areas might be that yellow was the first coat and green was the second if one was required. The two different tints allowed the painter and quality inspector to be sure that the second coat was complete. However, I don't know. The gear wells and inboard side of the landing gear doors did appear to be green.

It was a carrier-basing thing. A parachute accidentally being deployed on deck with even less than 30-40 knots wind-over-deck was to be avoided. If you can, take a look at the movie Bridges at Toko-Ri for Panther stuff, albeit -5s. Also see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/12/wheres-his-parachute.html

You should consider fairing the vertical fin into the upper fuselage more than the kit does. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-panther.html or compare this model to the Hasegawa Panther in that area.

I'd be inclined to paint the seat interior green. http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2012/12/f9f-panther-cockpit-color.html And also add a parachute and seat cushion.

Considering that at best I can measure something like a fuselage to one mm, which is almost three inches in 1/72, I agree.

I'm pretty sure that Grumman didn't give out bogus dimensions. The problem is what the dimension is from and to, particularly with respect to length.The Cougar fuselage is an example. First, whether it was a -6/7 or a -8. Second, there's the length along the waterline versus the length of the "shadow" on the ground. Third, the length varied depending on whether it included the tip of the refueling probe, or the barricade deflector (it stuck out about three inches in front of the nose and kept the straps from hanging up on a cannon barrel, potentially slewing the airplane around), or the tip of the nose cone itself. You can usually rely on the wing span in a table as opposed to the length, for which you really need to be working with a dimensioned drawing, preferably showing fuselage stations. However, Grumman made fuselage-station usage a challenge when they inserted eight inches into the fuselage of the -2 to create the -5. See the drawing note:

Thanks for going to the trouble to measure them. However, according to Grumman drawings (see https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-panther.html), the -2 was 37' 11 5/16 inches long measured along the waterline. (The -5 was 38' 10 1/16" long on their drawings.) The difference was 8" inserted in the -5's fuselage just ahead of the inlets and the trailing edge of its vertical tail extending 1 3/4" farther aft. The error appears to stem from the dimension on the XF9F-2 SAC, which was 37' 6", presumably rounded up. Later SACs, using the same drawing as near as I can tell, give the same measurement as 37' 11", rounded down. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2018/03/grumman-f9f-2-panther-length.html

That's an F2H-3 or 4, which was painted to a different cockpit standard.

The interior of the Naval Museum's F2H-2P is all black, including the ejection seat. That isn't consistent with the cockpit paint specification of the time but it may not be incorrect. See http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2015/04/cockpits.html The landing gear was painted aluminum. The wheel wells were probably zinc chromate green. The interior side of the landing gear doors were red, another McDonnell peculiarity. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2012/10/painting-crush-points-red.html

Some notes on the F9F-3: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2012/01/f9f-3-panther.html Check the links as well and note the markings and corogard (it may have been natural metal at the time instead) difference.

The cushions and parachute were generally left in the seat of carrier-based airplanes.