Tailspin Turtle

I don't know about the Hobby Boss kit, but the Academy-Minicraft one was pretty good according to my notes from once upon a time except for the too-shallow main wheel wells and tail pipe interior and the lack of intake continuity back to the front of the engine. It provides the longer wing and the intake for 974 and a basis for the first four (the B intakes were always one iteration behind the A's). More detail on the configurations of the F-111Bs here: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-f-111b.html

More on speed brakes, etc. here: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2015/09/grumman-6a-vs-6e-intruder.html

A bit more on the RH-3A with its sweeping rig installed: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2022/12/sikorsky-rh-3a-seaking-minesweeper.html

The configuration of the compartment dates from the origin of the F4H as the single-seat AH armed with the standard four 20mm cannons. Part of that compartment was dedicated to ammunition. When the Navy decided to repurpose the AH—the structure of which was defined and detail design in progress—as a Sparrow missile armed fleet air defense fighter with a radar operator, his seat was crammed into that compartment, with the ammunition deleted entirely and the other stuff that had been there relocated elsewhere.

Scroll down to item 9 for the most important feature of the aft cockpit rear bulkhead: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2023/06/early-mcdonnell-f-4b-phantom.html

So far, so good...

I think that Hyperscale link might be broken but I repeated it here in my Tom Weinel memorial web site: https://superheatmemorial.blogspot.com/2023/01/rf-8-conversions.html

For what it's worth, Sword had pretty good Vought F8U-1P drawings to work from. Also see: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/12/photo-gator.html https://superheatmemorial.blogspot.com/2023/01/rf-8-conversions.html

I don't think this is current but it will get you in the ballpark: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-complete-f-111b.html I have an errata/additions document for the monograph, which is out of print. My email address is included in the introduction to that post. Beware of print-on-demand copies, they are guano.

Sorry, I don't remember since I wasn't interested in anything on it - I traded mine (with the brochure) to Jeff Garrity for a Skylancer Decals F2H-3 Banshee Part 1 sheet that Donald Wood doesn't have any more of...

There was a very nice 2023 IPMS Nationals brochure in the welcome package at registration that included the decal sheet.

There was a hole there. If the pilot needed to empty the tip tanks of fuel in flight (they couldn't be dropped), air coming through that hole was necessary to jettison the fuel in the tanks. The valve tended to leak, so you will see pictures of parked F9F Panthers with plugs in those holes.

In glancing at this post just now, I realized that the dimension for the location of the leading edge slat and the one for the inboard A-6E wing fence couldn't both be correct. It appears that Grumman misplaced the location of the arrow for the leading edge slat on two different drawings (very precisely in one case: 87.476"). I've corrected it on the post.

For what it's worth, I was able to nail down the actual wing stations of the inboard fences: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2023/06/a-6a-versus-6e-inboard-wing-fence.html

I'm pretty sure that that the slat did not change. I'm looking for a drawing that would accurately locate its inboard edge. In the meantime, this is a bottom view of the fairing and the interface with the forward main landing gear door. Note that the cutout extends outboard of the wheel well opening because the door is outboard of the wheel well when the gear is down.

The first picture that I looked at: the fairing doesn't move. Now I suspect that the inboard end of the slat is mislocated on the Kinetic kit. More later.

I had assumed that outboard ECM fairing moved with the slat (and that would be wrong). I'll have to check that. In the meantime, here's some detail on the differences among the A-6s (I recommend that you check the location of the inboard fence on the upper surface of the wing): https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2015/09/grumman-6a-vs-6e-intruder.html

If the sun angle is right, you can see an indication of the location of a normal shock wave about 25-30% back from the leading edge of the wing of an airliner in cruise flight at altitude. The airplane is subsonic, but because the air accelerates over the top of the wing, it is locally slightly supersonic ahead of that line, which is the location of a normal (perpendicular to the wing surface) shock wave.

Thanks - that suggests that they could have been added, at least initially, after the introduction of the slotted stabilator increased its effectiveness and therefore the likelihood of dragging the tips.

My understanding is that the HH-2D was really misdesignated, so to speak. See https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-kaman-hu2kh-2-seasprite-introduction.html

Yes - you could probably scratch-build all the claptrap that went with the mine-sweeping mission: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2022/12/sikorsky-rh-3a-seaking-minesweeper.html

Lockheed 141 P-80 Shooting Star, root and tip: NACA 65-213 https://vspu.larc.nasa.gov/training-content/chapter-1-vspfundamentals/cross-section-details/naca-6-series-airfoil/

Thanks for the links to the very interesting reports: note that the RAND report does describe designs with propeller-driven propulsion for both cruise and to offset the static lift for landing. I had assumed initially that altitude changes were being used to control its flight path. One early morning at Black Forest Glider Port (just east of the Rocky Mountain foothills) in Colorado, I saw an intended close-circuit flight of a hot air balloon. By climbing and descending some hundreds of feet, it went east-southeast for a while, at least a couple of miles away, then north, then back west to la

That's what I thought too, but then I Googled it: https://stratocat.com.ar/fichas-e/1972/HMN-19720916.htm

As indicated by the pictures that Rich posted, Super Foxes were initially assigned to operational squadrons that deployed. They were subsequently flown by adversary squadrons and the Blue Angels when they switched from the F-4 to the A-4.