Oldbaldguy

Behind the firewall as in inside the fuselage behind the firewall? Not likely. The only oil behind the firewall and therefore inside the cockpit (which is immediately behind the firewall) would be the small line going to the required oil pressure gauge. Oil temp gauge was probably electric via a sending unit somewhere in the system. Oil doesn’t move around by itself; needs a mechanical pump to keep it moving and the pressure up and in a closed system doesn’t cool itself. The oil cooler requires air being rammed through it to pull the built up heat away the same as the radiator on your car. Ambient air like you have in the cockpit or fuselage isn’t sufficient, so the system needs either the pressurized air inside the cowling to force air through the cooler fins or a scoop if the cooler is remotely located for whatever reason - see Corsairs, Bearcats, some Spits, etc. The Hellcat was designed in a hurry to be built as quickly and cheaply as possible because it was desperately needed in the Pacific to counter the A6M and other Japanese planes. Strong, easy to build, minimal complicated systems, easy to work on and cheap enough that the government would buy a bazillion of them, so technology and elegance weren’t high on the list of must haves. Everything needed to keep the prop turning (save fuel) was compartmentalised in one place under the cowl ahead of the firewall because that was the easy solution and there was plenty of room. All that hot oil stays on the engine side of the firewall, the hot air venting out through a door at the bottom of the cowling or maybe under (but not inside) the forward part of the fuselage, the whole idea of a firewall being to keep things that burn separated from things you don’t want burned. Sorry. Was that even close to what you were asking?

By Jove, I think you did it! Very convincing oil system. Thankfully, you did not paint them orange. The orange lines seen in the photo of a restored Hellcat are semi flexible silicon impregnated high pressure fire sleeved hoses, a fairly recent technology that makes fuel and oil systems safer and more durable. Contemporaneous of WW2, your airplane’s oil system was made up of a number of preformed aluminum pipes that were joined by fabric reinforced black rubber couplings held in place with typical AN hardware screw clamps. These couplings not only connected the segments of pipe, they also provided vibration isolation and the ability for the whole system of hard lines to flex a bit, an absolutely essential characteristic for just about anything that flies. Air cooled engines heat up pretty quickly, relying on air flow, oil and in some cases fuel to help dissipate the heat. As the oil makes its way around the inside of the engine doing its job, it picks up heat which is why it needs to go through a radiator like oil cooler once it comes out to shed all those unwanted BTUs. Radial engines use/need lots of oil, which is why the oil lines are so big and the oil capacity is measured in gallons rather than quarts. All this has nothing to do with your wonderful build, but hopefully sheds a little light on a specific system most of us never think much about when building a kit.

This guy looks like a Marine to me. Any chance this an F-4B and not an F-4C?? Jennings?

I got to fly a real F-4E sim a couple of times back in the day. It was more of a systems trainer than what we now consider to be a flight sim. Coolest part was that you flew the sim from a high fidelity F-4E cockpit, otherwise, compared to this, it was like playing Pong on an old Atari rig.

I was wondering: Did you perhaps attend Hogwarts University in your younger days and do you have a little stick you wave around to make things do whatever you want?

Astonishing. I’d have been looking for my pellet gun about twenty pages ago.

Very spiffy in a weird sort of way, but you still have to have a pilot’s license to do anything with it except drive around. It seems to be practical on the surface - drive to an airport, unfold the thing, fly it to your destination airport, fold it back up and then drive it your meeting where you probably won’t be able to find a place to park it. If somebody dings it along the way, who fixes it: an A&P or Goober down at the garage? Oh, and because it is an airplane that looks like a car, you have to be careful about how much stuff you try to cram into the boot for your trip. And then there is the insurance question: Allstate, Avemco or both? Does anyone know if there is even a realistic market for it since it lacks any kind of VTOL capability? It’s a great exercise in creative engineering, but I just don’t see it becoming a viable consumer product. Might make a pretty cool LSP model, however. Or would it be a large scale car? Whatever. You know what I mean.

Feel your frustration, Chuck. Believe it or not, those of us on this side of your builds are feeling it as well. It’s frustrating as hell when somebody asks for help with something they are not familiar with, but then those of us with knowledge/experience to impart can’t get what we know to cross the space/time continuum and into your head so that you can carry on. All it takes is one dose of “it works like this” or “it looks like this” and you’d be slapping your forehead because it’s all so very simple. But the imparting part often requires extended discussion and explanation that is just too hard to do in a forum like this, as helpful as it often is. Very frustrating indeed.

Not trying to be a smart ass here, but I just googled F-4 Phantom wing fold images and tons of very useable photos, including a very nice pic of an Israeli F-4 with its wings folded. I might be wrong, but it seems like somebody made/makes an aftermarket wing fold set as well.

Note the overflow drain beneath the oil filler cap. Very nifty detail. I think “Hydraulic lines” may be a misnomer and maybe you shouldn’t think of them as such. On this airplane, everything between the face of the firewall and the motor is going to be either electrical, oil lines, gas lines or mechanical linkage rods. Also, now that you are retired, I think you’re going to find that you will have much less free time than before. People who think retired folks sit around watching afternoon TV while guzzling beer or whatever have yet to be “retired.”

Built mine with about average fuss and bother. IFR probe fairing is a mess and I replaced the windscreen with a Fisher upgrade part. Aftermarket seat, etc. Out of the box, the model is wrong - typical Trumpeter random “details” up around the nose need attention, etc. If you build it in flight, you’re going to leave about half the parts in the box.

The overall orange helicopters from back in the day were always my favorites, but best I remember, that paint job didn’t hold up well and started showing its age almost immediately. Can’t wait to see what you do with it!

Wonder if it has something to do with spoofing lasers?

Actually for less than that. Hollywood stunt fliers Frank Tallman and Paul Mantz bought an entire airfield filled with war surplus aircraft of all types for next to nothing. They drained from all the airplanes and sold it and then when Korea cranked up, they sold the gunsights out of the fighters back to the government for more than their original investment. A few years ago, I was chatting with a friend and his wife at their little backyard strip and they told me that just after the war, my friend and two other guys scraped together something like $500 (it might even have been less) in hopes of getting a surplus T-6 at auction. Well, their bid was accepted except that the lot they won was three airplanes, not one. So they ended up with an airplane each for a couple of hundred bucks. They had to buy gas and oil to get home, but that same day he and his wife climbed into their new T-6 and flew it home from somewhere in the Carolinas, I think. I mean, if somebody can buy the Kitty Hawk or some other decommissioned carrier for less than a dollar these days, why not a flyable T-6 or even a tired Mustang for a couple of hundred back in the day?

You can also glean a huge amount of useable data from Timmy’s earlier post with the fuselage and wing station drawings and they appear to be very accurate. When I started a similar journey a while back, I found that many of the Viggie line drawings out there are as much imagination as anything else.

Spent many hours myself on my belly with an LED light looking for some tiny part that always ends up in some impossible location miles from where it should be. BTW, I believe there might be some upscale art galleries on the West Coast that would be interested in exhibiting your trash can photos. They fit right in with current trends and you might could make a couple of bucks!

Trying to make this work in my head and failing miserably. Why the extra fins and where is the tow gear and such? Doubtless the airplane could do it, but why I wonder.

Ooooo! Mussels, fries and REAL mayo! Ooooo! (Please excuse the drool.). And beer! Ooooo!

If you haven’t already been there, check out Tommy’s tailhook blog from September 2011. He has a couple of very telling photos of Viggie tanks and I think maybe a company drawing or two.

Hmmmm. I think your drop tank looks more like a shape than a Viggie drop. Needs to taper more to the rear and some work on the shape and size of the fins.

Absolutely love it! Don’t care at all that it doesn’t have a tailhook. I love it anyway! Very well done.

Is it my imagination or did I read somewhere that during the war, pilots and crew chiefs often took delivery of their airplanes new in crates and still covered in cosmoline or some such and then had to assemble them themselves? Seeing as how the fuselage simply bolts to the top of the one piece wing, I’d think that would be entirely do-able even in a bare base situation.

I think you are going to have your hands full with the drops because the shape is as elusive as the shape of the nose. More of a tear drop shape in profile with four fins. Probably a lot more expensive to build in real life than they were worth, but they looked cool.

From back in the day when bombs were dumb and the pilot was the smartest thing in the airplane.

I’m guessing the dark stripe on the seat cushions were required by the pilots in order to save themselves from undo embarrassment resulting from a particularly colorful test card.