Tailspin Turtle

I/8 " is 3.175 mm. I only plan to reshape the front of the inlet although not cutting it back that much. If you look at the comparison photo of the FJ-2 and Sword noses (http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2017/10/sword-fj-2-preliminary.html), it looks like the cannon ports are too far aft of the inlet on the kit nose, so cutting back the inlet also solves that problem. I don't see a good way to shorten the aft fuselage so I'm just going to leave it as is. With respect to the length error, my guess is that Sword assumed that the overall length of 37' 7" was from the tip of the nose to the end of the fairing over the tailpipe. It's actually to the aft tips of the horizontal stabilizer, which are 21 inches aft of the fairing, or 7 mm in 1/72.

I now have all three kits in hand and they are lovely to behold. The surfaces and panel lines are engraved and petite. All the detail parts such as the pitot look as close to scale as you can probably do in 1/72. I haven't checked the fit except for fuselage halves and the wings but so far, so good. The canopy is injection molded in two pieces and clear. The FJ-2 fuselage and wing are not the same, correctly, as the FJ-3's. The FJ-3s have a slightly deeper inlet and forward lower fuselage and a different air scoop on the upper fuselage aft of the break. The FJ-3s have a cambered leading-edge wing that has a representation of the 6-3 planform change that differentiates it from the -2 and blue FJ-3s slatted wing, which were similar to the F-86E's and early F's. (Remarkably, the FJ-3 wings have three of the four barricade snaggers—these are teeny things in 1/72—on the leading edge of each wing, missing only the most outboard one.) They also have alternative rudders and horizontal stabilizers with the external ribbing on the trailing edge whereas the FJ-2 kit does not. The fuselage is about 1/4" too long. Theoretically you could take 1/8" out of the aft fuselage (but you can't do it at the break as I had hoped) and about 1/8" off the inlet. I'm for certain going to forget sectioning the aft fuselage. However, in my opinion, the downward curve in the top of the fuselage forward of the windscreen is incorrect (it needs to curve down more) and the bottom of the intake curves a bit forward and shouldn't. There appears to be enough plastic in both places to get closer to what I think is correct. The only difference besides decals between the -3 and the -3M kits is that the latter has two Sidewinders and the requisite pylons. Both have the inflight refueling probe. Getting enough weight in the nose to keep it from tail sitting might be interesting. A little scraping of the upper fuselage at the forward end of the windscreen appears to be required for a good fit. My guess is that putting the nose gear together (seven pieces!) might need to be altered from the instructions with respect to the location of the nose-wheel yoke, which may be too deep otherwise by a teeny bit. I'm pretty sure that the top of the nose gear door should be inside the forward end of the wheel well when it was extended.

Good news and thanks very much for that comparison. I was premature in speculating that Sword had used the F-86H fuselage length and shape as a basis for their FJ-2's. My guess now is that they used the overall FJ-2 length, including the stabilators extending aft of the fuselage proper, as the length for the fuselage from the tip of the nose to the tip of the fairing above the tailpipe. I've updated my draft post accordingly.

OK - the bad news. It appears that Sword used the basic shape of an F-86H for the FJ-2 fuselage and then modified the master with FJ-2 details. For more and a theoretical "fix", see my update: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2017/10/sword-fj-2-preliminary.html Note that the fix is very speculative on my part since I don't yet have the kit in hand.

I'm still working on it (there is some variation in the available NAA drawings that I'm reviewing again, not to mention that the draftsman who did the FJ-2 fuselage stations drawing was a little sloppy about the actual position on the drawing of the station identified). My first guess is that much of the length error (which my current estimate is about 6 mm, more than my personal tolerance) can be removed by cutting the fuselage at the break point behind the wing and reducing the length of mating end of the forward section of the fuselage by about 4 mm. The top of the nose forward of the windscreen also looks like it needs to be reshaped, since it doesn't curve down enough. It looks more like the F-86H's... More later

I'm waiting on the kits as I'm reluctant to conclude much from the sprue shots, certainly not anything as difficult to measure as the length. Sabrejet posted a picture with a measurement and then a correction it I remember correctly. I'll take a look at that.

I just tweaked the analysis a little and updated the post because the kit's wing wasn't exactly square to the grid...

Thanks for that picture. I eliminated a tiny bit of parallax and scaled it to my 1/72 layout developed from root and tip chords, wing sweep at 25% chord, and wing span. Since I still haven't settled on a new photo-hosting service, the result is provided here: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2017/10/sword-fj-2-preliminary.html Basically, the Sword wing appears to have a bit too much span and not quite enough sweep. There appears to be a bit too much chord at the side of the fuselage but not as much as the 6-3 chord. The tip chord looks about right. There is some uncertainty about the exact location of the trailing edge of the kit part, which would make a little difference in chord. Overall, however, I'd say the Sword wing is well within my tolerance for error.

The FJ-2 drawing in Detail and Scale does appear to depict the chord of the wing before the tip. However, in accordance with standard aerodynamic practice, the root chord is measured at the centerline of the fuselage, not the side of the fuselage, and the tip chord is measured with an extension of the leading and trailing edges to the tip of the wing.

Yes - they snagged the straps of the barricade (as opposed to the Davis barrier) to keep the airplane from slewing around and perhaps off the deck. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/07/non-aerodynamic-wing-fences.html

Martin, I just compared Sabrejet's photo of the wing above to my layout of the FJ-2 wing using the NAA digital data (root and tip chords, wing sweep angle at quarter chord). They match perfectly. I've provided that to Sabrejet. There may be a camera-lens parallax effect that makes this particular comparison invalid but I suggest that we wait for Sabrejet's assessment before anybody starts to rework Sword's FJ-2 wing chord.

I'm pretty sure that the FJ-2 entered service before the need for barricade catchers on most swept-wing carrier-based jets became apparent. And since they were rarely operated from carriers, having been assigned to shore-based Marine Corps squadrons, my guess is that the Navy decided not to bother with adding them like they did to the FJ-3s. Oops - Sabrejet posted pictures with which I am familiar of FJ-2s retrofitted with the barricade catchers on the wings. Mea culpa.

Mine is already out of print... http://tommythomason.com/books/finalscooter1/

The FJ-2 and early FJ-3 (slatted) wings were not the 6-3 wing. However, your dimensions are correct for the slatted FJ-2/3 wing. The later, Cambered Leading Edge "hard" FJ-3 wing was the 6-3 planform.

http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2017/10/va-72-a4d-2.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/04/fj23-fury-redux.html "As of BuNo 136118, FJ-3s had provisions for two pylons on each wing inboard of the existing ones for external tanks, for a total of six. The FJ-3s were also retrofitted for inflight refueling with the installation of a fixed probe extending from the left wing." As far as I know, it was not retrofitted to the FJ-2.

The blue FJ-3s had slats like the FJ-2's. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/04/fj23-fury-redux.html

One shortcoming of the otherwise excellent North American FJ-2 drawing is that the side view of the nose duplicates the one the FJ-3's, so it is slightly too deep. For more, see https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/04/fj23-fury-redux.html

Also, the nose landing gear "yoke" that connects the strut to the wheel looks to be a bit long. If so, modifying it would make for a more realistic nose-up stance as well. The forward nose gear door appears to be a little long but that may be because the test-shot builder did not realize that the top part of it is actually inside the wheel well when the nose gear is extended. The flopped picture posted in comparison to the test-shot build is a little misleading with respect to the nose gear retraction mechanism because it is located on the left side of the nose gear strut. The lower pictures are more representative. It should be appreciated that perfection is hard and Sword has really worked toward it. When I first looked at pictures of the sprues a few months ago, I thought that the bulge behind the NACA inlet on the fuselage was bogus but on reviewing high-enough resolution pictures like the one that Sabrejet flopped above for comparison with the test build, I discovered that Sword had got it right. Also, the main landing gear strut and doors are pretty complex and it looks like Sword got them right as well. Sabrejet, please add a post that links to your excellent set of annotated pictures of the FJs.

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2010/10/bat-out-of-hell.html Scroll down for information on the cockpit and ejection seat

Unfortunately, there was some detail variation in the color of post-World War II Navy cockpits and limited color photography so the best I could do was post what I did have and refer to the general specification. To extrapolate from what's in that post, the FJ-1 would probably have had a black instrument panel and at least black tops on the side consoles. The sides of the consoles and floor should have been interior green. However, from the pictures of the FJ-1 cockpit that have been posted in this thread, it looks like the cockpit, including the sides of the consoles, was painted a very dark blue-gray (note the difference between the black of the instrument faces and the color of the instrument panel in the color picture) and the floor, a lighter color. The NASM color picture suggests the floor was painted a lighter blue-gray, but since it had to have been taken with a flash or using bright lights, the colors may not be true; in the Boeing gray-scale picture, the floor is an indeterminate color but it could very well be interior green. Don Hinton took pictures of the NASM's FJ-1 cockpit when it was at the Navy museum at Pensacola. However, it may have been repainted after it was removed from flight status; certainly the exterior was repainted. In his color pictures of the cockpit, the interior is all over very dark gray—not quite black—except for the black instrument faces and stick grip and the light-colored canvas boot at the bottom of the stick grip.

You couldn't find it because that post is in a different blog, Tailhook Topics Drafts. See http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2015/04/cockpits.html

The markings drawing shows Corogard at the leading edges of the vertical and horizontal tails. I can just see it in some pictures so it must be very narrow. The forward end of the glove vane on 972 definitely does have a cream-colored panel on its leading edge. Let me know if I need to send you a picture.

Wow - that rope is faint. No idea about printer setup.

Your logo looks pretty good except for the font as you wrote (I know those can be hard to match) and the anchor would be more accurate without the rope. The color of the flames and the emblems might be more brown or gold than your orange. Future has worked for me but so has Microscale decal film.