Sabrejet

Following this with interest: it's not often that one sees a proper hill climber in model form (in fact I can't think of another). 👍

Incidentally the kit markings for the USAF F-40-winged aircraft are missing a few bits I note (stbd/RH side nose markings). I'd still go for the Aeromaster sheets if you want a long-winged USAF machine. Also the Armycast USAF aircraft is a short-span, unslatted machine, despite what the decal sheet would seem to show.

Incidentally Aeromaster 48-700 should also be good for F-40 wing USAF Sabres. 58th FBW was probably the only front-line USAF Wing to operate 'long-wing' F-86Fs so would be a nice change from the norm (I think you were looking for just USAF decal sheets).

The Eduard decals are all for short-span (non-F-40) aircraft. However Aeromaster does a sheet for 58th FBW Sabres which will be OK for an F-40-winged aircraft. It's sheet 48-699. This colour scheme:

Kursad at Caracal Decals has announced that he will do a 1/48 FJ-2 sheet with the three XFJ-2/2Bs; a GSB production aircraft and two Reserve schemes. He is also going to do a stencil sheet for NMF/gull grey + GSB schemes, with corrected stencils. http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/310660-cd48171-148-fj-2-fury/

Al Blackburn got the story of the first flight wrong, and so not only didn't it happen the way he said; it's very well recorded what did occur. And when I say, "massive amount of evidence", I mean, primary source data, not the recollections of those, some of whom were there, but many of whom were only peripherally involved. And it's not obvious that the XP-86 flew supersonically in 1948. It did so very few times in fact: the #1 machine possibly just once and the #2 aircraft four times that I have so far found record of. I can find no evidence that the #3 XP-86 went supersonic at all that year.

The Revell kit is boxed as a Sabre 6 but is actually an F-86F-40. OOB you can't build it as an accurate Sabre 6, but the USAF did operate F-86F-40-configured Sabres so perversely you can do a USAF Sabre from the kit! Daft eh?

The debate should be well-and-truly knocked on the head. There is zero evidence that the XP-86 went Mach 1+ before the XS-1 and a massive amount of evidence that it did so early in 1948.

Well '6226 was already in this scheme at the time of its belly landing on 29 June 1954, and the second colour photo above was taken at Yuma in November 1954...

85th FIS: bear in mind that 53-664 above is an F-86L; 52-3879 and 52-3725 are drag-chuted F-86D-41s. The ‘early’ (non drag chute) scheme was applied circa August 1953 and retained up to February 1955 when the last of the 'early' (non-drag chute) aircraft departed 85th FIS for conversion. The early colour scheme was applied to the following 27 aircraft: 51-2982, 51-2991, 51-2999, 51-3004, 51-3026, 51-3029, 51-3099, 51-3111, 51-6123, 51-6225, 51-6226, 51-6228, 51-6232, 51-6235, 51-6236, 51-6242, 51-6244, 51-6253, 51-8280, 51-8281, 51-8283, 51-8291, 51-8299, 51-8306, 51-8409, 51-8479 and 51-8496. Here are a few photos for inspiration: I do like this scheme.

The Big H has a few sets at less than £8: Superscale 48-954 (85th FIS 51-8291) - £7.99 Superscale 48-955 (93rd FIS scheme, 51-6245) - £4.80. Superscale 48-772 also has a 469th FIS aircraft 52-3675 with no chute at £3.33. All good schemes!

...the 85th FIS aircraft on Superscale 48-954 is also an early machine.

Cutting Edge does a sheet (CED48155) which has a 97th FIS machine (51-6024) which is correct. Note that the other Cutting Edge sheet (CED48153) has 97th FIS options, but these are brake-chuted machines. Eagle Strike also has two sheets for ‘non-brake chute’ F-86Ds: 48070 with 51-6024 in the 97th FIS scheme as above; and 51-8437 of 13th FIS. 48071 with 51-8377 of 86th FIS; 51-8407 of 2nd FIS and 51-3078 of 465th FIS. These should be good for a start. There may be others.

Green wheel wells; green speed brake wells; green speed brake panel interiors; silver gear door inner faces.

Good job! 👍

Possibly MFH? They have announced a new 1/9 kit coming soon...

I noted some debate on the Kitty Hawk ejection seat. I've managed to find some scaleable NAA drawings and measured the seat width at approx. 22inches, or 11.7mm in 1/48: And the KH seat is....approximately 11.4mm. So I'm happy that KH got it right in terms of width. The proportions look good too, so I'd say those other seats are wrong, not Kitty Hawk. Each time I look at this kit I find precise dimensions so I think we need to stop picking holes in it and rejoice in a job well done. 🤗

And another that @Tailspin Turtle may be able to clean up a bit: showing compressed, static and max extended positions:

Try this: official NAA FJ-2 drawing, so will be accurate. I've put fuselage stations in so that it can be scaled. It's also shown with fuselage centre line horizontal, so the forward rake of the leg can be shown correctly:

Don't hold your breath but a full set of stencils for NMF and GSB FJ-2s would be a start, as would a nice sheet of VMF and Reserve aircraft, with correct colours etc.

There's no record of an official Service Change for deletion of the doors, but it's possible that if the doors were not considered flight-critical (as @Tailspin Turtle mentions above), they might have been removed with local approval. However I can find no photographic evidence of it on FJ-2s. Regarding tail surfaces, I measured the span of the horizontal tail and can confirm that KH got that right too. I think there may be a resin set of AM being issued for cockpit, seat, radio compass etc but the set referenced by @Jon Kunac-Tabinor above looks good and will come in handy for sure.

Neither kit will give you an accurate Sabre 4 OOB; the Airfix kit will address that issue correctly.

Yes it seems so: tailwheel on the drone was fixed (not rectractable).

It's a curse you know: as pointless aviation info goes in one ear, something valuable (e.g. wedding anniversary date) gets pushed out the other one...

It's the Horton Wingless, designed by William Horton in California in 1952. And it did fly: there are images in the LIFE magazine archive.