I dunno how I missed this one the first time around, Louis, but I'm eagerly awaiting your always well-done presentation of these 'Cats. A refreshing change of livery for the F-6F. (Wonder what's in that 'crash' area of DAB now?).

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement and cheering me on. I also learned from the photos posted of the original planes. I wasn't aware of these differences especially with the tail wheel and antenna leads.

This prompted me to do some more research and I found some pretty cool pictures of the drones and the Bikini Atoll Atomic test planes. Thanks again for the heads up about the differences on these planes.

I'm going to try and spray some interior green paint in a few. Please stay tuned.

Hey Louis, love your choice of a group of four Hellcats- you may have noticed the wing tip mod on #15 in the later picture- not sure if the bulge on the wing tip shows in the earlier picture, additionally, the two pictures may be of two BuNos which had #15 at to different times...

Thanks for posting the question Dan.

Yes I did notice the wing tip modification. If you look closely at the other picture of the same plane, it's visible there too.

I was hoping for a simple build with only a small amount of mods being necessary. Initially when I chose this particular subject as a build, I wasn't aware of the different wing tip. So I learned something here.

Thanks for pointing this out. Meanwhile I'm doing some more research to see if I can find some photos of a similar plane without the wingtip changes.

Honestly Craig, the location could have even been at the N / S (16 and 34) runway which is much shorter.

The buildings as I remember them were located near the end of 16.
They extended the runway back in 1992 (on the west end of 7L) by a considerable distance. The original 7L runway ended almost even with Thames Rd. years ago. We used to go there and watch the planes take off. They would fly right over you at a very low altitude.

The crash sight very well could have been right where Clyde Morris is now too, at the east end of 25R.

I am very curious about this Hellcat crash location, and plan on doing some digging to try and narrow it down.

Back in August 1937, a DC-2 that was operated by Eastern Airlines, crashed in the area that is now one of the Cemeteries on Bellevue Ave. The plane crashed on top of the hill on the North side of Bellevue. There were some fatalities. I think 4 out of the 9 persons on board died.

I found these pictures from the Daytona Beach News Journal...

It very well could have been into the wind, which normally would lead to a take off going right out over Clyde Morris. This is the same route the DC-2 shown in the photos above was taking.

Good project. I'll be watching.
Godspeed!

A quick little update:

I realized that I had been talking about building 4 Hellcat planes. Plus I had another kit in the stash that was open.

So I pulled it out and built another cockpit.

Now there are 4 ready for some "interior green ".

I'm getting ready to spray these and a few others from other builds that are ready for paint.

Thanks again for looking and following along with this build.