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F9F-5 Panther VF-781 Lt Royce Williams Mig Killer


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On 10/4/2021 at 10:26 AM, jonwinn said:

The plane I am modeling. Is that small light above the pilot's forearm the collision light that is behind the canopy and offset to the starboard side? If so I guess the pilot is facing the tail with his back to the nose. Looks like a seat harness in back of him in the shadows. Unfortunately this doesn't show the blow in doors. jon

 

ca-times.brightspotcdn.com.jpg

Yes he is on the wing, facing aft. The blow in door in question is also shown in the photo. It's directly above the large hole with all of the stenciling on it. Some, but not all, F9F-5s had the blow in doors with the angled lower edge. The Earlier -2 never had that arrangement. From what I can remember, the red anticollision light on the spine is on the centerline.

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12 hours ago, Chriss7607 said:

Yes he is on the wing, facing aft. The blow in door in question is also shown in the photo. It's directly above the large hole with all of the stenciling on it. Some, but not all, F9F-5s had the blow in doors with the angled lower edge. The Earlier -2 never had that arrangement. From what I can remember, the red anticollision light on the spine is on the centerline.

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.

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3 hours ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

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.

Yeah, that's right- I forgot about that. Now that you say that, the red anticollision light on the Skyraider didn't come around until like '62 or something like that so the Panther wouldn't have had one. I was trying to find photos of that and the -5 blow in doors but wasn't able to come up with anything. Thanks for setting me straight! I'm a little rusty on my Panther info.

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I'm still looking for rogue F9F-5s with rectangular blow in doors. Dark sea blue does not show panel lines well, however I think the famous F9F-5  "Blue Tail Fly" with the NMF forward fuselage does show it to have the rectangular large blow in door. The dark blue planes are hard to see. jon

F9F-The-Blue-Tail-Fly.jpg

Edited by jonwinn
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17 hours ago, jonwinn said:

I'm still looking for rogue F9F-5s with rectangular blow in doors. Dark sea blue does not show panel lines well, however I think the famous F9F-5  "Blue Tail Fly" with the NMF forward fuselage does show it to have the rectangular large blow in door. The dark blue planes are hard to see. jon

F9F-The-Blue-Tail-Fly.jpg

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).

Edited by Tailspin Turtle
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I'm curious as to how this build turned out and I have a question for the group.  While most of the press says that then Lt. Williams aircraft was an F9F-5 I'm seeing that most of the aircraft in Korea in '52 were most likely to be F9F-2s.  Does anybody know which it really was?  Many thanks in advance!

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