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


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BTW those arrows are meaningless if they are a location aid. I built a ton of these and never saw these arrows. I always went by the "seat" and the rounded areas of the nose well. just saying. jon

Edited by jonwinn
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22 hours ago, Chriss7607 said:

Converting the Monogram -5 into a -2 is possible with a little effort and, in my opinion, ends up better than what Trumpeter/Hobbycraft offers. If you don't want to do the staggered cut, a straight vertical cut ahead of the intakes will still work. The only thing with that approach is that the canopy has to be displayed open since it will shorten the decking under it. That never bothered me, so being the simpler route that was what I went with. The vertical tail has more than enough meat to be reshaped without any problems. I used the old 1/48 scale Detail & Scale drawings to get the right shapes. The wing leading edges near the intakes are easy to cut down as well. They will need a little filling but it's nothing bad. The only other detail is the stepped side console on the left side of the cockpit, near the throttle. I don't remember what I did but it must not have been that hard. That's at least the very basics of the work involved.

 

Wow, Chriss; thanks a lot for this piece of info!

 

On 10/2/2021 at 7:12 PM, jonwinn said:

No replacements on this build,  and if you cut the fuselage in the right place you can shorten it by the necessary 8 inches, then comes the fun with the tail shape. See here.

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-panther.html

F9F-2 to-5 sketch.jpg

 

Easily said than done, but I think I'm in for that staggered cut.

Thank you both, guys.

Cheers,

 

Gwen

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I sanded the fuselage and found it needs a bit of putty. In some spots it's flush and other areas have a very small step, looks like 1/4 to 1/2 mm. Enough to be annoying and add a bit of putty. I also cut off the 2 front cannon barrels as they were about to break off anyways.  jon

 

f9f5 19.JPG

f9f5 20.JPG

Edited by jonwinn
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Just a bit curious. I just looked at the large blow in door on my Monogram -5, it's rectangular. I was under the belief that it had one corner of that door notched at an angle to clear the larger  -5 engine. I re checked some information and there was a member from here years ago that went to a "webinar" on the Panther about the time the Trumpeter kit came out, 2007 or 2008. He said that "some" of the -5s had the door notched, not all. Any ideas on that? My Detail and Scale book has a 3 view drawing showing the door on the -5 notched. jon

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7 hours ago, jonwinn said:

Just a bit curious. I just looked at the large blow in door on my Monogram -5, it's rectangular. I was under the belief that it had one corner of that door notched at an angle to clear the larger  -5 engine. I re checked some information and there was a member from here years ago that went to a "webinar" on the Panther about the time the Trumpeter kit came out, 2007 or 2008. He said that "some" of the -5s had the door notched, not all. Any ideas on that? My Detail and Scale book has a 3 view drawing showing the door on the -5 notched. jon

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.

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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

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So, during the 50s they were wearing flight jackets with a lot of patches on. I thought that this was a "trend" that started in the late 70s but obviously I was wrong. Now, where do I have that leather flight jacket....hmmmmm🤔

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7 hours ago, 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

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 shoulder.

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OK, so that no step is actually close to the angled corner of the large blow in door. That being said I have to make the rear lower corner of my Monogram Panthers blow in door angled and NOT rectangular like Monogram did. So I guess Trumpeter is not the only one who screwed up the Panther. jon

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3 hours ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

That was the upper fuselage formation or section light. It probably had a transparent blue cover. There was another on the belly. For more see, https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/03/exterior-lights.html

Further research revealed that these lights, one on top of the fuselage and the other on the bottom, were white.

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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

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According to those walk around pictures Monogram got nothing correct except there are doors somewhere near the tail. Actually the large blow in doors begin in the curve of the spine where it starts up to the tail not in the flat area before the tail. The small blow in door looks to be further back and more up into the curve of the leading edge of the tail. I might just add an angled side to the small blow in door. All said we need a new tool F9F-5 AND F9F-2. No one did justice to the Panther except maybe Paul Fisher, I've never seen that one up close and personal but have heard that it is very well detailed. Why did the museum put a red anti collision light on the spine? Is it not suppose to be white? jon

Edited by jonwinn
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