Another Unique Blue Angels A-4 Skyhawk Feature

 

15 October 2026: Updated with more information (see comment) 

David Aungst became aware of the difference in the tips of the stock A-4 ailerons and elevators and those of the Blue Angels A-4F Super Foxes and took these pictures of the four-ship display (one did have the Blue Angels mod) suspended overhead in an atrium of the National Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola, Florida to illustrate it.

 Note that the aft outer edge of both the aileron and elevator of the Blue Angels Skyhawks come to a sharp corner rather than being rounded (I overlaid an outline of the stock aileron and elevator on the Blue Angels' so I'm pretty sure that there was no increase in span of either as a result).

 The difference seems small but apparently it made a notable enough difference in roll rate and pitch control power to be worth it. 

 In response to the comment below, I attempted to compare the prototype aileron and elevator tips to the later production ones. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found good pictures for the purpose. It does appear in some that the prototype tips were more pointed, particularly the elevators, but not in the best picture I could find.

 However, this picture of an A4D-1 suggests that the tips were sharper at some point thereafter:

 Other, better known external changes to the Blue Angels A-4F Skyhawk included the bulged intakes and longer tailpipe that were associated with the Super Fox configuration (see https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/02/super-fox.html and the illustration below), the removal of the cannons, a housing for the boarding ladder extending from the left cannon bay, the bolted up slats (they were individually actuated aerodynamically so might not extend or retract at the same time, decreasing roll control precision), and the addition of a drag parachute housing under the aft fuselage.

 The boarding ladder was very narrow and collapsed like a parallelogram to fit in its housing for flights to and from display venues.

Sword 1/72 AF-2S/W Guardian

 9 October 2026: Lance Braman provided build notes in the comments on the engine mounting and the location of the landing gear scissors.

 

A Work In Progress 

Sword has just released its 1/72 AF-2S/W Guardian kits. They join an unusually large set of modeling options for an airplane that was not only not a fighter or attacker, but a placeholder between repurposed WW II TBM torpedo bombers and the iconic Grumman S2F for the carrier-based Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) mission. It began as a replacement for the TBM as a torpedo bomber (TB3F) with a amall jet engine for enhanced attack speed. Then in the prototype phase following the war, it too was repurposed for ASW. Like the TBMs, the mission equipment was split between two versions, one (hunter) carrying a big radar to detect, at a distance, surfaced submarines (or their snorkels when submerged) and the other (killer), sonobuoys to hopefully ascertain the location of a submerged submarine close enough for a homing torpedo to find it. The killer was also carrying a smaller, short-range radar to detect a surfaced submarine, a searchlight to illuminate it, and rockets for the coup de grâce.

 The previous 1/72 alternatives were vacuforms (Airmodel and Esoteric/Rareplanes), resin (RVHP), and injection-molded plastic (ACE/ihp). Airmodel kits are very basic (no decals or landing gear) and unless an extensive amount of scratch building was accomplished, good only for creation of a stand-mounted desktop approximation of the subject. The Esoteric/Rareplanes Guardian kits were a joint venture that included metal landing gear and decals; a modeler versed in vacuform building techniques could produce an accurate and very presentable model. The RVHP kits are probably somewhere in between the two different vacuform kits in terms of buildability and detail. The ACE/ihp-brand kits were injection-molded plastic with photo-etched brass detail and separate control surfaces. Paul Boyer dismissed it in one word, "awful". Joel Hamm completed it and condemned it in many more words in this review on Modeling Madness HERE.

For my previous notes on the Guardian and a couple of comments on the Specialty Hobby 1/48 kit, click HERE.

I've only had a chance to glance at the kits but my first impression is very good: Two-piece canopy (masks included) to improve the view of a very detailed cockpit (practically a kit itself), fine surface detail, two different wheel types, two different antennas behind the cockpit, scale thickness landing gear, an adequate representation of the engine in this scale, etc. Only the early version of the interface between the fuselage and radome of the AF-2W is provided (see the link above to my notes) but it wouldn't be too difficult to convert it to the later one. The instructions don't indicate which of optional parts to use but they do indicate in red where the glue goes, a feature that I haven't seen before.

 One decal omission:  The auxiliary fins are the AF-2S/W were often marked in white on both sides (my guess is these markings, like the white landing gear, were intended to keep deckhands from bumping into them at night).

A couple of important build notes on AeroScale HERE

More later,