Tailspin Turtle

Check Steve’s website to see what is out of print: http://www.ginterbooks.com/ Order any of those even on Amazon and you may get a low-quality POD. I asked Amazon not to do that for any of mine and they seemed to have complied (the F-111B is out of stock; they list one “collectible” for $132!)

It also depends on what drawing or museum example is being consulted: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-not-that-easy-to-get-it-right.html

My apologies: I was wrong, the bottom of the fuselage does begin to curve up a little before the radome according to pretty good Vought drawings.

Thanks for the suggestion. It does look a bit better but doesn’t address the fact that the bottom of the forward fuselage should not curve upward before it reaches the radome.

Al now has 129544 that was at the Museum of Flight in his hangar in Arizona. I don't know what Paul Allen's relationship with it was. Al also has hunks of 129622 and smaller pieces of other F7U-3s. The J46 may not have been particularly durable (durability, TBO being one measure, generally increases proportionally with the number of overhaul inspections but the J46 wasn't in service for very long) but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that it was considered unreliable and in any event, the Cutlass has a spare if one has to be shutdown in flight. I'm sure he'd like to acquire more J46 p

That link is better than most but not the complete story and there a few errors. It did take too long to reach the fleet, in part due to short-sighted decisions by the Navy in addition to Westinghouse being late in the development of the J46. Note that the Cutlass was mostly assigned to attack squadrons; there was a photo reconnaissance version but it wasn’t assigned to deployable squadrons. The F7U was assigned to about as many Navy squadrons as the F4D but most with Skyrays made more than one deployment. No Cutlass squadron made more than one and some did not make any. As to why it wasn’t mo

Steve - Much of what you and almost all other aviation enthusiasts have read about the F7U-3 Cutlass is incorrect or at best, an exaggeration. For example, the accident rate, when examined in context, was not significantly worse than other U.S Navy carrier-based jets at the time and arguably better than the F8U’s. It was also not underpowered relative to early jets before the Navy added useful load and avionics, etc. to make it the first carrier-based fighter to be deployed with the big Sparrow missiles: that made it much heavier but by then the Cutlass was just a placeholder for the F3H Demon

Jon - thanks for the plug on the F7U-3 monograph. My coauthor is Al Casby, who not only knows more about the F7U than anyone else on the planet but is rebuilding one to flight status. The monograph is about 85% complete. At the moment, I'm working on the model kit section, which is basically a summary of the major kits that have been produced. I would very much like to know what the CAT4 radome looks like in profile as well as any information on the 1/144 Matti's Mini's kits.

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

My guess is that your modeling skills are up to the changes to make one of the F-111B variations depending on what 1/48 kit that you start with. Pete’s conversion wasn’t all that great with respect to the accuracy of some of the parts or the decals for that matter. For most of the information you need, see https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-f-111b.html. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have questions.

Well, that turned out to be easier than I thought: see http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2021/06/grumman-f9f-8p-photoflash-cartridge.html