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Grumman EA-6B Prowler


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  • 4 weeks later...

I want to know how you caught the strobes. The only way I can tell them is kind of close up and flying at night because they light up differently. And whats with the, most of the prowlers are the ICAP II because most of the Marine Prowlers are ICAP III now. Was that person talking about the NAVY birds. That would make sense because they are going EA-18's now instead of Prowlers. ALQ 99's have been carried for years. Whats the deal with this pic.

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So the strobes are easy to catch because if you blow it up and look at the lower forward one under the nose (the one just before the radome) its is clear vs. being a red. That is indicitive of being a LED strobe that came with the ICAP II Block 89A Mod 4 changes. The caption of the photo on Flickr states this is a Block 86, if that would be true then the LED strobes wouldn't be there. The ARC-210 antennas wouldn't be installed (the ones that have the horns on them just aft of the cockpit and under the cockpit on the lower half of the forward fuseslage), there wouldn't be the additional antennas for the USQ-113 system (the extra blade antenna on the top of the fuselage in what is commonly called "Turtleback 3" that also contains the SATCOM hump, along with the large blade antenna on the birdcage area). To tell if its ICAP III you would need to know what is under the radome and what is under the "football" on the tail. So just looking at what I see right in front of me tells me at its heart, this is basically an ICAP II Block 89A mod (since there are two of the ARC-210 antennas vs 1 with the Blk 89 mod), then add in that LED strobes are there that makes it a Mod 4 change. Mod 4 basically brings over a number of ICAP III changes such as a DFCS system, new IFF system and a few others with out adding in the ALQ-218 mods. The only visual clue that I can remember which tells an ICAP II from an ICAP III bird is that on the football there is an extra panel on the aft section commonly called the "Coffee Can" this use to house an antenna array for the ALQ-126 system from way back in the days of EXCAP and ICAP I. During the ICAP III mods, this panel is deleted so the tail is smooth again on the back end.

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121214-N-YZ910-070.jpg

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Dec. 14, 2012) Personnel assigned to Fleet Readiness Center Southeast tow an EA-6B Prowler aircraft down Yorktown Boulevard at Naval Air Station Jacksonville towards Heritage Park. The Prowler is painted in a World War II paint scheme and displays the names of several naval aviator heroes including Capt. Scott Speicher who was shot down during the Gulf War, Capt. Michael Estocin, a Medal of Honor recipient for actions during the Vietnam Conflict, Cmdr. Harry Ferrier, a hero during the Battle of Midway and Korean War Ace Cmdr. Guy Bordelon, Jr. The aircraft is on loan from the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla.

Edited by bolo
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  • 1 month later...

Talk about perfect timing! -

For VAQ-129 Starwarrior fans I have some good news. When we originally printed the sheet 48050 we got 550 copies from the printer but only 500 inserts for the tail. We finally printed up a new batch of tail inserts along with a few extra pieces. So we now have 50 sheets available. (and 200 extra tail inserts that will go into the spares box).

So while it's still the 501 jet, we do have the sheets back in stock. I'll turn on the links in the morning.

48050_front.jpg

thanks,

brian

Edited by Brian P: Fightertown Decals
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Another way to tell if it's ICAP III is there's a small blade antenna on the top of the 'football' on the tail in addition to the removal of the -126 'beer can.'

Which makes Kinetic's -140 boxing kind of ineteresting, in that the airframe (externally at least, I can't remember what I've read about the cockpit) represents ICAP III, but the paint job represents -140's ICAP II '500.' Once we got ICAP III (right as I was arriving the at the squadron), the color on the tail of 500 had to stop at the football. NAVAIR was pretty explicit in saying 'no,' and guys who had worked both developmental and operational test in their shore jobs were fellow department heads - and they managed to convince the front office that, in fact, it would have been bad to paint the football.

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  • 9 months later...

Another Prowler has been placed on static display. It is 158034 the 10th Prowler built and came off the production line in 1971 or 72, has been placed on static display at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. It carries the tail code NE and has USS Constellation for the carrier name. It apparently just arrived recently and work is still being done. As the gate to where it is on display was locked I could not get close for pictures. I would assume as Tinker has the Navy E-6 squadrons stationed there is the reason it has been put on display at an Air Force base. Hope this helps for the bureau number watchers out there.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I'm throwing a bit of a Hail Mary here, but does anybody have anything on the VEP mods for 158542 and 158547 before the three ADVCAPs were cut-and-spliced into FrankenProwler? Mainly, I'm looking for anything that could help me fab the fin-tip and wing LERX extensions, what few photos I've seen are all at more dramatic "artsy" angles and nothing square-on and suitable for reference.

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