Tailspin Turtle

As afoxbat stated, the horizontal stabilizer was one piece, mounted in a large opening in the vertical fin. The plate he describes initially covered the hole through the full range of stabilizer movement (there’s a similar arrangement on other Heinemann designed aircraft). However, a “sugar scoop” fairing was added above the A4D’s tailpipe very early on to solve a buffet problem. If you look closely, the aft bottom edge of the plate therefore had to be trimmed to clear the top of the sugar scoop. That meant that the opening was no longer completely closed when the stabilizer was positioned leading edge down.

A better link: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2015/09/grumman-6a-vs-6e-intruder.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2018/09/special-hobby-fh-1-phantom-and-xfd-1.html

Maintenance - “Why did you pull 8 g’s?” Pilot - “Because I couldn’t get 9!”

Yes - there’s also an indicator pin that sticks out of the cowl. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/10/ad-skyraider-modeling-notes.html

I was just responding to the part of the statement that there was no box art on display. That there was suggests that there is still hope. My understanding is that at least some of the delay is the desire to get the configuration right...

The FJ-2 box art was included in a poster of forthcoming kits at the KH tables in Chattanooga.

There’s drawings and then there’s Jun’s drawings. For dimensions, see https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/06/things-under-wings-f4h-f-4-phantom.html

Excellent work: Some notes on the non-USN wide-body Skyraiders https://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-1e-yankee-escape-system.html https://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2017/08/usafvnaf-1es.html The difference in the main landing gear doors was that in some cases, the narrow-body gear doors were substituted. These had to be cut back to clear the catapult hook on the landing gear strut of the wide bodies, since they were not readily removable.

There is one there but it is not as prominent as the one on the fighters. You be the judge; see https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/12/photo-gator.html

Note that unlike the F-8 fighter’s, the vents on the right side of the fuselage just ahead of and below the leading edge of the wing are raised on a rectangular fairing but are relatively flush to the fuselage skin.

Thanks

Because of the “milling” lines longitudinally on the fuselage and the discontinuity on the fuselage between the trailing edge of the wing and the leading edge of the stabilator, I thought it might be either 3-D printed or a quick and dirty milling of plastic blocks from CAD software.

First impressions: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2019/04/sword-172-f3h-demon-kits.html

For those not familiar with the J58, it was a direct-drive start. The start-cart drive shaft engaged a gearbox in the bottom of the nacelle. The ground crew first started and warmed up the two engines in the cart, which took a few minutes. Then they engaged the drive and increased the starter engines’ rpm to what must have been their red line. Just about when you thought their pistons were going to swap holes, you heard the dull crump of the J58’s ignition. At that point the jet engine began to accelerate to its idle rpm and the starter engines wound back down, sounding very relieved and exhausted. At night in the evenings at Edwards you could pretty much hear a J58 startup all over the flight line area and beyond.