Purplethistle wrote:Do you have any particular squadron in mind for your Forrestal Project Vigilante? From what I've seen whilst researching my own USN project, most of the specific detail is on the tail fin with a squadron badge on the fuselage, the rest being standard markings. I will be making up a decal sheet of lettering and numbers within the next couple of weeks and will probably have enough free space to run off a couple of Vigilante fins if you want me to do that.
That's very kind of you PT. I have been conducting some research myself. In fact I'm creating a spreadsheet of the aircraft operated from Forrestal, gathering and cross-referencing information from a number of sources and listing them by manufacturer/type/mark/squadron and year operated. By using a spreadsheet I'll be able to filter and cross-reference but it is a slow process. I'm at over 100 entries and until I saw your kind offer had no Vigilantes listed (or Tomcats, Hornets and Hawkeyes). So it's going to be a bit of an ongoing project.
I have found out that the following squadrons operated Vigilantes from Forrestal:
RVAH-12 from 1968-69
RVAH-13 from 1969-70
RVAH-7 in 1971
RVAH-9 from 1972-73
RVAH-6 in 1974
RVAH-7 in 1975
I don't mind which squadron really as long as the Vigilante is represented although I am a little wary of assuming that the colour scheme will be standard. I did some research into VF-74 and found that they changed the colours of their F-4s quite a lot as they moved from ship to ship. So I'll look out for some reference photos and get back to you