In article ,
dean writes:
No one mounts wings in the
middle of the fuselage.

Except Republic (F-84 Plank Wings, F-84 Swept Wings, the XF-103 (Not
flown) and the F-105), and Lockheed (F-104), and Cpnvair (F-102,
F-106, adn B-58), and Grumman (F9F, F11F), and McDonnell (F3H), and
DeHavilland (Vampire, Venom, Sea Vixen), and Hawker (Hunter) and
Dassault (Ouragan, Mystere II, Mystere IV), and Mikoyan-Guerivith
(MiG-15, MiG-17, MiG-19, MiG-21), or Sukhoi (Su-7, Su-9, Su-11),
or...

of course, there's a reason for this. by having
them either above or below the fuselage, the wings can be a single
structure. if it's midmounted, then you have to beef up the fuselage to
support the wings. so if it wasn't a wing, it could have been a
horizontal stabilizer. so i checked the A-7 stab. no actuator...
after finding no fighters with actuators on the horzontal stabilizers
did i think of the rudder.

I doesn't work that way. The only jet I know of where teh wing is a
single structure is the Folland Gnat (Little teeny fighter, with a
wing span smaller than most other fighter's stabilator spans) You
see, the problem comes when you've got to haul 'em around, or
disassemble them for maintenance, or other such stuff (such as
building them in the first place). Consider, if you will, the need to
haul, say, an F-15 around on a flatbed trailer, or stuff a broken
airplane into a C-5 to get hauled back to the Depot to get fixed. No
matter how many Wide Load Permits you get, you can't haul 40 sonthing
feet of wingspan down the highway. So, the usual practice is to have
the the wing spars attack to the fuselage carry-through structure at
the root.

that "bulbous thing" was also a big clue. but i never did find an exact
match, just some A-7s and F-8s that had something close. if it was an
antenna, then it could change every time they put a new antenna in and
finding an exact match would be difficult.

It's definitely a late model F-8, either an H or J, fro the fairing
shape. (Note that somebody's removed the access panel on the side of
the fairing) The F-8 ESM/ECM fit didn't change very much. The RWR
(Radar Warning Receiver) ALQ-51/ALQ-100 DECM (Deception Jammers) fit
didn't and couldn't change very much over time. (For one thing, there
wasn't room - the RWR/DECM kit was oficially named "Shoehorn" becasue
there wasn't enough spare space in teh airframe for a normal
installation. In fact, they sacrificed some of the cannon ammo to
squeeze it in. (Not a big loss, BTW - the F-8's gun installation (4 Mk
12 20mm) was notoriously unreliable. )


Thankfully Pat was better at finding more examples to look at. Wouldn't
it be cool if 149212 was the actual wreckage?

It could be. There are a couple of places you can look for clues:
First, theere should be a large pair of letters on the fin:
"N Something" or "A Something". That will identify which Air Group
the airplane belonged to. The Bureau Number (The airplane's Serial
Number, basically) will, on an F-8, be in 12" numerals at teh root
(felege attachment side) of the fin. If you end up going back out,
those are the places to look. It's possible that teh Sun has washed
out the paint on the exposed side.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster