Tailspin Turtle

The exhaust stacks are under the cowl flaps so they are not too obvious. The blog mentions that there were two on each side above the wing leading edge (there's an obvious recess for them there) and one under the wing (note the exhaust staining that highlights its recess in the comparison picture of the wing leading edge inlets). This is the collector:

And then there's the lines drawings:

One example on the F2H: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/12/f2h-banshee-modeling-notes.html

Thanks - I fixed the link.

Well, now you have...

Remember that before the war, airplanes bought by the Navy and assigned to Marine squadrons were prominently marked with "U.S. Marines" (see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Curtiss_SBC-4_First_Marine_Air_Wing_1930s.jpeg) as opposed to "U.S. Navy". The only reason that I weasel-worded the consistency of the wartime marking was that a unit conducting combat operations might not bother remarking a replacement flown in from a CASU pool right away, if ever.

It was not unusual (maybe it was customary) to see an airplane assigned to a Marine squadron with"MARINES" in place of "NAVY".

I'm pretty sure that, the Vought XF5U information sheet not withstanding, the XF5U did not have an ejection seat. It appears to have had a seat with a bucket for a parachute, narrow sides, and a square rather than rounded top. The headrest was separate from the seat.

There may be some confusion between dihedral and angle of incidence. The following data chart from the McDonnell F3H-2 Standard Aircraft Characteristics Chart states that the dihedral is 0 degrees and the angle of incidence is 2 degrees. In other words, the wing leading edge and trailing edge lie along a straight line from tip to tip from the standpoint of the wing itself. If the wing had anhedral, the leading edge of one wing would be at an angle to the other. The problem with the F3H front view is the angle of incidence. If the wing was not mounted on the fuselage at an angle of incidence (which is depicted in a side view), the dihedral in a front view would clearly be zero. However, since it is mounted at an angle of 2 degrees and the wing is swept, the front view correctly depicts the leading edge of the wing tip as being lower than the leading edge of the wing root. (The wing also appears to be much thicker than it actually is.): If the front view was drawn with the fuselage tilted 2-degrees nose down, then the wing would not appear to have anhedral. Unfortunately, I can't comment on what is depicted in the Detail and Scale monograph since it is only available on devices that I don't own.

Hard to believe, but the V-173 concept demonstrator that was powered by two 80 hp engines was the same size as the F5U. These are the Eagles Talon and Pegasus kits (the colors aren't representative of those on the models).

You're right - it's sort of an optical illusion like the A3D's wing. The dihedral listed on McDonnell documents is zero. Because the wing is swept and mounted at an incidence to the fuselage reference line (water line), the wing tip looks lower than the wing root in a front view or when photographed from directly in front or in back.

Nobody asked about static blade droop but for completeness, here is the proper shape of the curve: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-note-on-rotor-blade-droop.html With respect to the tilt forward and sideward of the mast, the tilt is intended to provide a roughly level deck angle in cruise flight and reduce rotor induced bending loads on the mast and hub. The forward tilt of the rotor is necessary to provide forward speed. The sideward tilt offsets the thrust of the tailrotor. (Also note that some helicopter rotors turn the wrong way, e.g. Russian and Eurocopter, so the direction of sideward tilt will depend on the direction of rotation.)

A lot of the description and information in this thread appears to have been taken from my F8U-3 monograph except for the discussion about one versus two engines. According to Navy documents, it wasn't a major factor in the decision to continue with the F4H and terminate the F8U-3. The main advantage that the F4H had was two seats, with a dedicated radar operator. That made a small but significant difference in the ability of the F4H crew to detect an oncoming bogey and shoot it down. There's a discussion of that and lots more in it: The monograph is available from several sources including Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Vought-F8U-3-Crusader-Super-Fighters/dp/0984611401

See http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2013/10/texaco.html for a scaled drawing of the drogue that might be useful. The basket is 24-30 inches in diameter, depending on the drawing source.

For some background and a reference to a Naval Aviation News article on the Navy's natural metal finish experiment, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2009/12/it-seemed-like-good-idea-at-time-vii.html I subsequently got some more Navy reports on experiment that I haven't yet incorporated. It appears that the original intention was not to paint any surface that didn't have some modicum of protection. Magnesium skins, i.e. those on the Cutlass, were painted and the difference is obvious. A wax was to be provided but was in short supply. A few natural-metal airplanes did better from a corrosion-control standpoint that others, primarily because their crew chiefs were meticulous about keeping them clean and waxed. On the whole however, minimizing the corrosion required a lot of labor and wasn't worth the benefit. At least one Marine FJ-2 squadrons did deploy with a carrier air group (e.g. VMF-122 deployed aboard Coral Sea as part of CVG-17 (3XXLC) from March to September 1955) and VMF-235 operated a few aircraft—21, 22 and 23WU—from Hancock during Project Steam in July 1954. See http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2010/12/davis-barrier-one-more-time.html for a picture of a VMF-122 FJ-2 landing aboard and http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2012/01/project-steam.html for a description of Project Steam and a VMF-235 FJ-2 photo.

Possible, yes. Best starting point, maybe. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2010/09/mighty-skywarrior.html for a summary description of the various A-3 configurations. The ERA-3B was a modification of the RA-3B, which had a slightly different fuselage, including nose, than the EA-3B's. However, the ERA-3B did have the big antenna housing (canoe) on the belly which would be needed for the later EA-3B version; hopefully the kit parts include the "dove" tail and the standard fin tip if that's your starting point. Then you would just have to fiddle with the nose, eliminate the camera portholes on the side of the forward fuselage, and add cabin windows and the escape door on the right-hand side of the fuselage. The picture above advertising the TA-3B is actually an EA-3B (they had slightly different canopies) but I doubt that the confusion extended to the kit details. Except for the canopy thing, which Trumpeter probably didn't recognize or care about, the TA-3B would be a slightly better starting point for the fuselage (mainly eliminate the windows on the left-hand side of the fuselage and whatever else TA-3B unique that is included) but then you'd have to come up with the canoe for the belly.

A-6 Wing Fold: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/01/grumman-6-wing-fold-differences.html

I've recently moved and not yet unpacked my modeling room. Plus I'm behind schedule on finishing up my last few book commitments. So, regrets, but good luck.

A couple of references for USN Seakings: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2013/02/us-navy-asw-sh-3-sea-king-variations.html http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/04/cyber-hobby-sh-3d-build-by-jodie-peeler.html

FYI, I've made some changes and additions to my Spey-powered Phantom post over the past couple of days: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2012/05/spey-powered-phantom-changes.html

I've made some detail additions and changes to my Spey-powered Phantom post over the past few days: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2012/05/spey-powered-phantom-changes.html

Thanks for the reference to Julien's walkaround. I finally got a good look at the different fuel vent configuration that was used on the F-4K/M and added it to my post on the differences between the J79 and Spey Phantoms: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2012/05/spey-powered-phantom-changes.html

The fairing was narrower, but I suspect that this had more to do with the fact that the Spey nozzles were bigger around and thus the distance between them was less at that waterline. My guess is that the distance between the inboard sides of the Spey nozzles was the same as on the J79 if not slightly greater (the Speys were slightly towed in at the front.

Note that there were was another change for the Ark launch, which was the super-extendable nose gear. I don't know whether that would have been enough, however.

Probably apocryphal, certainly in part, but when I joined McAir as a flight test engineer on the F-4K program in 1966, the story was that "the Queen" had insisted that half the content be British. Since the cost of the F-4 was very approximately one-third air frame, one-third engines, and one-third avionics, that resulted in the engines, some amount of airframe (for sure aft of FS 515), and some avionics coming from Old Blighty. It was a very educational two years for me, in any event...