F4U-1 Corsair Volume 2 by Dana Bell

You may have a dozen F4U Corsair books and monographs in your library, maybe even two dozen. It doesn't matter. If you have any interest in the F4U, you'll want to buy this book. I have lots of Corsair information: books, magazines, clippings, web articles, etc. I've read them all multiple times. I can assure you that a lot of configuration material in this monograph is in none of them.

The content is very similar to Volume 1 (see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/12/aircraft-pictorial-7-f4u-1-corsair-vol-1.html). It covered the development history and configuration development of the "Birdcage" Corsairs in impressive detail with many previously unpublished photos and new information. This one does the same for the "Raised Canopy" F4U-1s that succeeded them in production.

Go here for a more detailed and illustrated review of this volume: http://www.hyperscale.com/2015/reviews/books/f4u1vol2bellbookreviewse_1.htm

I suggest that you buy these monographs directly from the publisher: http://www.classicwarships.com/index.html. That increases his profit, which encourages him to publish more books of this type, and should generate more income for Dana, which encourages him to keep on researching and writing more books of this type.

You will not be disappointed.

Cockpit Color - Navy Carrier-Based Airplanes

The question of cockpit colors comes up fairly often on modeling web sites. I'm working on an overview of the changing requirements with some examples. See http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2015/04/cockpits.html

The F3Ds of the Flying Nightmares in Korea

23 June 2017: I've just taken a closer look at the variations in the  F3D's overhead hatch. It was the normal entry and exit point, accessed by kick-in steps on the right side of the fuselage.

Photo via Paul Bless

The hatch was originally solid on the prototypes:

 Note that there were horizontal lines across the windscreen.

Two small side-by-side windows were subsequently added to the hatch.

There was a "disc" in the center of the hatch that contained the lever to open and close it.

Later, probably in the mid-1950s or later, a hatch with much more glass area was introduced.

This is almost certainly the hatch on the EF-10Bs but is not necessarily the one on all gray/white F3Ds:

Phil Juvet's walkaround site has gone to "404 not found" but here is the later hatch picture from it:

I suspect that this is an F3D painted black for display in a museum since it's likely that any operational blue or black Skyknights had the hatch with two small windows.

15 April 2015: I've made several updates in the last couple of days to this blog, most recently just now. The best single and best priced reference for the F3D is still Steve Ginter's monograph, Naval Fighters number Four.

I suggest that you buy it directly from Steve: http://www.ginterbooks.com/NAVAL/NF4.htm
Otherwise, you risk getting a lower quality, print-on-demand version.

Sword recently released two different 1/72 scale injection-molded kits of the Douglas F3D Skynight, one with decals for its early career and the other with decals for its late career. This is the box art for the former.

 

Markings for five different airplanes are provided in this kit, three of them for VMF(N)-513 F3Ds based in Korea during the Korean War.

Unfortunately, Sword relied in part on pictures of former Raytheon test beds, so there is a prominent external conduit on the upper left side of the fuselage and one on the right side of the fuselage forward of the wing that are on no operational Skyknight. Otherwise, it looks great in the box.

 Bill Spidle Photo

Via Paul Bless

VMF(N)-513 is best known for escorting U.S. Air Force B-29s at night during the Korean War and shooting down the defending MiGs.* Their first airplanes in Korea were initially painted in a low-visibility night fighter scheme of black with red side numbers and tail codes. Surprisingly, the national insignia was not subdued although this is an example (one of two I've seen) of it being significantly reduced in size. (It may be that the Marines believed that the national insignia was not to be obscured and that this airplane is a former VC-4 F3D that had its national insignia subdued: see below.)

Jerry O'Rourke wrote an excellent book (with Capt. E.T. Wooldridge, USN Ret.) about their exploits. He was the officer-in-charge of the VC-4 detachment of F3Ds from Lake Champlain that was seconded to the Flying Nightmares when the Champ arrived off Korea in June 1953.

To reduce weight and improve performance, the inlet blanking plates (down inside the inlet ducts), tail bumper, and tail hook were removed from some F3Ds.

It would appear that most, if not all, of the VMF(N) F3Ds also had the Davis barrier cable pickup removed from the main landing gear since it was only required for carrier operations. (The spur is not provided in the Sword kit.)

For background on the Davis barrier, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2010/10/barriers-and-barricades-one-more-time.html; for the implementation of better Davis barrier compatibility on the Grumman S2F, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2010/12/davis-barrier-one-more-time.html

Because of the harsh operating conditions, including frequent flights in heavy rain, and/or substandard repaint, some of the black airplanes eventually exhibited significant wear and tear.

Via Paul Bless

 VMF(N)-513 reportedly began operations in Korea with 15 F3Ds, at least 14 painted black, in mid 1952. Over the next 12 months or so, they lost seven to accidents and in combat against MiGs. The replacements (and there may have also been some additions) were from the aircraft pool located in Japan; I had thought that all of these were blue but O'Rourke wrote that he flew a new "coal-black" F3D in combat on 24 July 1953.

It's not easy to tell in some photographs whether the airplane is overall black or blue. There doesn't seem to be any consistency with respect to the color of the type designation and Bureau Number on the fin under the horizontal stabilizer on blue F3Ds or their presence on black ones. It is clear that this one is a blue replacement airplane, though, with the angle-of-attack stripes over painted by the WF tail code. Note the spur on the main landing gear.

I'm pretty sure that the three marking options in the Sword kit are correctly shown on the back of the box as blue versus black although the box art of 23WF (see lead picture) incorrectly depicts it with the angle-of-attack stripes.

I had thought that the four VC-4 F3Ds that joined VMF(N)-513 would have been repainted with a red side number and WF tail code but according to O'Rourke, they were not remarked until they were formally transferred to the Marines in late August or early September 1953 when Lake Champlain left to return to the U.S. This is an example of one of them when it was flying from Champ in April 1953.

Doug Siegfried provided another of this F3D from the Lake Champlain cruise book:

Paul Bless, my go-to guy for the F3D, sent me this picture from the Navy Times that indicates the VC-4 markings were over sprayed like those of other carrier-based "all-weather" airplanes.

The following is probably a photo of a former VC-4 airplane since it was taken in September 1953, after their airplanes were transferred to VMF(N)-513. Note that the side number appears to have been painted over a VC-4 badge and the white stripes that denoted the access step locations have been partially obscured. (For the full picture, see http://www.millionmonkeytheater.com/f3dpics/127030.jpg)

Paul Bless also came up with this picture from Mike Allen that shows his father, Bobbie Allen, posed in front of a VC-4 airplane with obscured markings.

And this is another of cruise book photo of 604 on the ramp in Korea provided by Doug Siegfried.

This crude obscuration of white markings on carrier-based night-attack airplanes was frequently accomplished during the Korean War as seen on this VC-33 AD-4N:

More care appears to have been taken with subduing the markings on the famous Korean War F4U-5N, Annie Mo.

*For a downloadable article about B-29 operations in Korea during the war, see http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090814-035.pdf

I'm now awaiting new information on this subject.

In case you wanted a picture of the interior of the speed brake:

EKA-3B versus EA-3B, One More Time

Trumpeter's 1/48 KA-3B kit includes a bomb-bay mounted crew compartment, apparently to be used for a forthcoming EKA-3B kit along with external antennas. They probably relied on the following drawing in an aviation enthusiast's publication because there is no cabin in the fuselage of the EKA-3B.

Unfortunately, the artist conflated the internal details of an EA-3B (electronic reconnaissance), which did have a cabin in the fuselage, with the external details of an EKA-3B (jammer/tanker). The inflight refueling hose reel is also way undersized and the EKA-3B, unlike the EA-3B, did not have a deployable ram-air turbine for emergency power.

The EKA-3B was a modified KA-3B (tanker), which was a bomber; the EA-3B was one of the so-called versions, A3Ds with the fuselage aft of the cockpit rearranged to provide a cabin.

This is a crude illustration from a Navy manual of the major changes to a tanker that resulted in an EKA-3B.

This is a late-configuration EA-3B (the original had a pod-type fairing on the top of the vertical fin and smaller fairing than shown here on the bottom of the fuselage.)

Note the windows for the cabin, the emergency-egress door on the side of the fuselage, and the different framing on the canopy associated with the increased cockpit/cabin pressurization of the versions.

For completeness at the risk of adding to the confusion, this is an ERA-3B, a photo-reconnaissance "version" modified with an array of radio/radar jamming equipment to provide ECM training for U.S. Navy warships.

For more details on the A3D/A-3 family, see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2010/09/mighty-skywarrior.html

Are You Going To Believe Me or Your Lying Eyes?

VAH-4 reportedly initiated the marking of its A3D tankers with large black stripes on the fuselage to make a specific one easy to identify in the event there was more than one in the vicinity of an airplane that needed infllight refueling.

The number of stripes generally coincided with a single-digit side number or when VAH-4 became VAQ-131, the last digit of a 61X side number as shown above. The tip of the fin was generally painted maroon in accordance with its presence as a detachment in the air wing. The fairing on the aft end of the fuselage was invariably white as far as I knew from looking at many pictures.

I was therefore surprised to see this profile in Rick Morgan's excellent A-3 monograph, just now available (http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2015/03/new-a3da-3-skywarrior-monograph.html):

Note the two-digit side number, white (ish) fin tip, blue aft-fuselage fairing, two thin and blue stripes on the fuselage with 3 as the last digit of the side number, and what's more, two blue stripes on the wing, something I hadn't seen before.

Of course, an illustration might be in error, even when drawn by the estimable Jim Laurier who did the ones for this monograph. There is a reproduction of a cruise-book color photo on line of this airplane that shows blue stripes, but again, a scan of a printed photo might be subject to color distortion. (All the other atypical details were obvious in the picture.) Perhaps Jim used it for the profile, including the stripes that appeared to be blue?

And then a modeler called my attention to this photo:

(It's from an excellent Japanese web site, http://www.gonavy.jp/index.html, and credited to "toksans" with the date February 1968.)

Rick Morgan reports that the other two Whales on this Tico deployment were Bureau Numbers 138951 and 142239. The former had side number 11 and a single red stripe with a red tail fairing. The latter had the side number 12 but he's not seen a picture of it.

The Complete F-111B

29 March 2026: I regret to report that the title is incorrect as I've probably created more posts since I last updated this one. For completeness, please search for F-111B posts on these two blogs: (tailspintopics.blogspot.com/ and thanlont.blogspot.com/ )

 Updated 24 April 2024

When you combine my F-111B monograph (http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2008/05/grumman-f-111b.html) with the errata document (available by email to tommythomason at sbcglobal dot net) and the following posts, that's pretty much what you'll have.

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-f-111b.html

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/01/f-111b-versus-f-14a-one-more-time.html

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2009/03/f-111b-carrier-trials.html

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2010/11/f-111b-colossal-weight-improvement.html

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2009/03/it-seemed-like-good-idea-at-time-ii.html

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/10/douglas-f6d-missileer.html

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-brief-history-of-f-111b-flight-test.html

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2009/06/making-most-of-space-available.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/01/production-f-111b-fuselage.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/09/f-111b-envelope-expansion-wing.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/09/f-111-auxiliary-flaps.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2012/01/f-111b-inflight-refueling-probe.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/09/f-111b-aft-main-landing-gear-door.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/07/f-111ab-ejection-seats.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-f-111b-auxiliary-flap.html

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-f-111b-production-main-landing-gear.html

https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2018/02/f-111a-vs-b-what-drove-weight.html 

https://thanlont.blogspot.com/2018/08/was-navys-f-111-really-that-bad.html

https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2024/04/f-111b-self-boarding.html

Grumman AF Guardian Notes

22 Many 2026: Added cockpit picture

18 October 2016: See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/10/grumman-af-2w-guardian-redux.html for a discussion of the different AF-2W radome configurations.

28 October 2015 Update: Added an AF-3S picture and a summary of the changes from the AF-2S.

17 May 2015 Update: For my assessment of a question about the length of the nose of the Special Hobby kit, see http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2015/05/special-hobby-af-question.html

8 May 2015 Update: I've added information on the cockpit.

I've just finished up reviewing the decal sheets for the Special Hobby 1/48th Grumman AF Guardian kits:

I didn't have much to add because of the research that had already gone into creating them. I was, however, interested to see how difficult it was to be sure of specific details of markings, paint scheme, and configuration even given the short operational life of the airplane.

Here, for example, is an annotated photo of a VS-24 AF-2S circa 1951 (it still has the single tail wheel and early forward mast) showing some of the details which varied:

Going clockwise from the blue radome:

The APS-31 radomes were generally unpainted. The paint on this one is already eroding.

The location of the underwing marking of the side number and unit letter was not specified exactly so in some squadrons they were inboard as above or not on the airplane at all. More typically, they were well outboard, just inboard of the national insignia and branch of service, although in this case the unit letter is not present.

 (There was also no consistency as to whether the side numbers were odd or even depending on whether the airplane was a -2S or a -2W.)

The early mast was simply an attach point for a wire radio antenna. It was subsequently replaced by a mount for an ECM antenna that appears to have only been installed on the AF-2W (but not always). However, the same mount, sans ECM antenna, was used on the AF-2S. The early mast is present circa 1950-51; the later, 1953-54.

Some squadrons added their badge to the side of the fuselage under the cockpit.

The large expanse of a black anti-glare panel is unusual. My guess is that it was on the AF (and it is on most but not all of them) because the pilot was the only member of the crew that could do a visual search for a submarine or its snorkel; the nonspecular paint eliminated any glint he might get from the forward fuselage.

The appearance and painting of APS-20 radome varied. The radome itself appears to have been either off-white, a "natural" fiberglass tan (see above picture), or painted blue. The fairing above the radome that encompassed the bomb bay was either light colored or painted blue as in the picture above, whereas in the one below, the entire installation is an off-white.

Note that this is an early AF-2W as evidenced by the early antenna mount. It also has blue landing gear struts and no anti-glare panel.

My guess is that the blue-painted landing gear struts were a feature of early airplanes. They, along with the retracted side of the door, was subsequently painted white as a reference point for night operations, particularly for the benefit of the catapult gear. Similarly, white markings were added to the fins on the horizontal stabilizer.

More accurate localization by Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) proved to be important to weapons effectiveness. The bad news was that MAD had a very short range; the good news is that a submarine detected using MAD was right under the airplane. Grumman built 40 AF-3Ss equipped with an extendable MAD boom scabbed onto the right side of the fuselage (it was necessary to extend the detector as far from ferrous metal in the airplane as possible when in use).

Note the larger APS-31B surface-search radar under the right wing (see http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2012/11/things-under-wings-radar.html for the longer pod used on the AD-4N and 5N).

The added weight of the MAD installation and bigger radar required removal of some equipment and stores capability.

The best single reference for the AF Guardian by far is Naval Fighters Number Twenty: http://www.ginterbooks.com/NAVAL/NF20.htm

One error with the Special Hobby kit noted by Alan Weber (see http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=272400&st=40) is that it has an eight-spoke wheel, whereas the operational aircraft and all but one of the survivors on display, have a six-spoke wheel. David C. Jones reports that the Tamiya P-47 six-spoke wheels are a drop-in fit after you drill out the kit hubs.

Ginter's otherwise excellent monograph lacks detail on the pilot's seat. Note that it was located on the left side of the airplane (the original torpedo bomber was to have a crewman's seat squeezed into the right side of the cockpit a little aft of the pilot's seat).  The right hand console was double wide as a result. The pilot's seat was not the standard bucket seat with a rounded top: it had a higher, square seat back.

The headrest, not shown in the picture above that was taken of a civil "war bird" cockpit, was mounted on a inverted-V frame attached to the top of the seat.

 Photo via Alan Weber

The seat and the aft bulkhead of the cockpit were probably painted interior green.

There was a rack of black avionics or electrical system boxes mounted behind the pilot on the aft bulkhead and another large panel to their lower right.

Do not be mislead by pictures of AF-2S BuNo 123090 or AF-2W BuNo 123091 that had an ejection seat installed for high-risk flight testing. No operational AF had an ejection seat.

Note the striped warning panel on the cockpit sill.

The instrument mounted on the top of the windscreen was a magnetic compass. The white rectangle on the side of it was the compass correction card. This is an AF-2S (it has the gun sight). Note the radar scope angled toward the pilot. It appears to have rear view mirrors.