Ben Brown

@Scott Smith, beautiful! Ben

Bump. New items added.

Paint chips have been updated. Added Krylon True Blue to the comparison. Ben

Here's a link to the T-Birds F-4E Configuration Manual. There's probably some mods applied to the Blue Angels F-4Js, too. Ben

Hi @BillS! Feel free to add anything you want to the thread. I don't have a whole lot on the T-Birds F-4s, since in the past my interests have always run more to the F-100s. When digging into the F-100 history, I found that the crew chiefs were consistently the best sources of the kind of nerd stuff I love because they had their hands on the jets every day. Cheers! Ben

Woo hoo! Ben

Kursad, I’ve got a few good reference pics and some markings info for pre-war 4th FG F-86As if you’re interested. Ben

I didn’t notice they were shaped differently until I started digging through my references to start this thread! 😄 Ben

I’d definitely buy a 1/144 sheet if it’s reissued. I missed it the last time. Ben

I was asked if I knew how either team stowed the rear seat harnesses when the seat was unoccupied, but I don't have that info. Anyone? Ben

A good reference photo for the topside of the F-4J. The round ADF antenna is visible on Door 19, just aft of the rear canopy. This jet also appears to have the elongated stab reinforcement plates installed. They show up as lighter metal at the outboard ends of the dark center spars. Closeup of the engine area with the silver-painted aft fuselage. Source

Tommy Thomason has a great blog post on Blue Angels colors HERE. For the F-4J through the F/A-18, the Blues went with commercially available paint. Even though different paint manufacturers were used over time, the blues were supposed to be similar. The F-4J used a yellow that was a close match to FS 13538 “Chrome Yellow.” As Tommy mentions, what is usually sold as Blue Angel Blue, FS 15050, has sometimes been thought to be too dark and too grey. Hal Tippens, proprietor of Yellowhammer decals, believes that FS 15052 is a closer match. ARC forum member @82Whitey51 was able to compare 15

A short note about Blue Angels afterburners. Tommy Thomason has a great blog post about the difference between the afterburners on the F-4. The Blue Angels jets had the early, short nozzles, with the exception of 153876 and 153839, which were brought in later to replace losses. LINK Modeler's note: Unlike the long nose F-4s, the short nose jets had the pitot tube mounted to the leading edge of the tail. All F-4s had a bellows probe for the artificial feel system mounted on the leading edge of the tail, directly above the red anti collision beacon. This system was deactivated on the

Thanks, Jari! Here is what I have for the BA F-4J. All I have for the rear cockpit is this scan of the instructions from the Yellowhammer decal sheet (picture shamelessly stolen from Rare Plane Detective). Blue Angel 2 is traditionally flown by a Marine pilot. As a joke when the team switched to F-4Js, a "banana dispenser" was added to the #2 jet. I haven't found where in the cockpit it was installed. Source Ben

Both teams had a tape antenna added to the rear canopy. All of the BA jets seem to have had that antenna on the spine. Here is more info on the canopy antenna from Tommy Thomason's excellent blog: LINK Via Bill Spidle & YouTube Smoke system fitted to both teams. Ben