EA-6B wings

[Pappy121]

G'day people,

 

Did all Prowlers have the composite wings from new or was this a mix between new build and retrofit?

I know that A-6Es were a mix of metal/composite but unsure about the Prowlers.

 

I have the 1/48 Kinetic kit which has the composite wings. I want to do a 1978 VMAQ-2 'Playboys' jet in LGG over white. The kit looks like it has an ICAP III  or later cockpit which looks too advanced for 1978 so I assume this will need to be backdated for a 1978 jet (ICAP II?) but not sure if they had composite wings from then?

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[A-10 LOADER]

I'm pretty sure, much like the A-6E's, they got their composite wings later in life as they went thru their upgrades. For a 78 jet, no composite wings.

Steve

[Pappy121]

G'day Steve,

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

I have the Kinetic legacy A-6A/E/E TRAM kit which has all the bits for a comp wing jet included (bulged outboard pylons, the wingfold cylinders, different wingfold inserts etc.) but the wing parts themselves are the metal type. Kinetic originally released their A-6E TRAM kit with the comp wing. Unfortunately, the legacy boxing only allows the builder to make a metal wing bird. 

 

My Kinetic Prowler kit has comp wings. I was hoping to swap the wings between the two kits so that I will have a metal wing Prowler and comp wing Intruder, which would work if the early Prowlers had metal wings,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[Quixote74]

Not my scale of choice so I can't help directlly with your proposed parts swap, but these links should be useful:

 

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/01/grumman-6-wing-fold-differences.html?m=1

 

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/01/grumman-6-wing-fold-differences-part-2.html?m=1

 

As I follow it, the EA-6B doesn't technically have a "composite" or "metal" wing fold, but technically its own unique configuration (closer to the composite version).

[Pappy121]

G'day Quixote,

 

Thank you very much, that is an excellent explanation that clearly outlined the differences.

 

I can see why I was confused. The EA-6B  had all metal wings but employed a similar design to that used on the composite wing A-6Es. Externally the bulged pylon and wing fold cover look similar but the comp wing A-6s employed a rotary actuator (which is why they needed a bulged pylon). Both the comp wing A-6Es and EA-6Bs  wing fold had horizontal locking lugs vice the vertical lugs of the original metal winged A-6s.

 

A simple parts swap will not cut it as the metal A-6 wing will be incorrect for the Prowler and although close the Prowler wing will not be correct for the A-6E

 

cheers,

 

Pappy