JYAI EA-6B Prowlers

[John Young]

I'm spilling the beans on this one early because I could do with a little help please.

I've picked the EA-6B Prowler from the suggestions list and also because I have always liked the aircraft. The model is far from complete yet - all the wing animations are sealed up at the moment while I carry on with mapping the texture. The paint itself is still at an early stage:





I'll be making some load-out variations with a wing fold option and I already have a carrier (wet) FDE working. I'll be making FS9 and FSX/P3D models, but I'm not planning to do scenery or flight plans.

I'm planning to make the 5 aircraft for each of the 4 USMC squadrons and the 6 USN squadrons that were in service in 2014. The full list of squadrons is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_ ... 6B_Prowler

Unfortunately, Scramble can't help me much with serials, hence the request for help. Does anyone have the serials please for the 4 USMC squadrons and USN VAQ-129,131,133,134,140 and 142 please, circa 2014?

Just to pre-empt the question - will I also make the A-6 Intruder? Possibly, I'll see how I feel about it when I finish Prowling.

John

[Delboy99]

Lovely.

[jetpilot1980]

SWEEEETTTT!!!!!!

[TheFoufure]

Wow. A good news !!

I've checked my old version of Scramble books. But I only have years 2000/2001/2017/2019, sorry.

[Jonjon]

Hi John,
Fantastic news, I've always liked this aircraft too and your model looks great!
I was more than lucky to visit the Eisenhower with VAQ-140 on board so here are the serials from 2013 if it helps:
163521 AJ-500
161779 AJ-501
161881 AJ-502
163527 AJ-503
If you need some pics of them, jst tell me
Again awesome work and good choice!

Fred

[f4nutter]

nice looking model John

[Manschy]

What a variety of aircraft you did the last months! It is always a surprise when watching this forum after several weeks! Great...

[John Young]

The Prowler is quite an interesting aircraft to build. The main gear animation was a pig and it took me 10 hours to get the wheels into the wells. The 4 crew members and 4 ejection seats were always a worry because they account for nearly 4000 polygons. That pushes the total count to 11,436 triangles, but with a judicious intermediate LOD and only 4 or 5 aircraft per squadron, it should be fine. There are 42 animated parts, which will be fun, when it comes to FSX/P3D tagging.

I'm hoping to find a few nice CAG paint schemes of the period, when I have a look around for them.

John

[gsnde]

This is a wonderful new project, John. Thanks a lot!


From mobile hence short

[Victory103]

Tremdous news to read on the A-6 series (thumbs up for the Intruder version as well). VAQ-132 was in the air wing I was in, but my closest encounter happened during the last deployment for the USMC models. Here are some BuNos from gonavy.jp:
VMAQ-4 (RM)
( EA-6B )
(Feb. 2013 - Jul. 2013)

VMAQ-2 (CY)
( EA-6B )
(Jul. 2013 - Feb. 2014)
Modex Bu.No.
06-163889
00-163046
07-163526
01-163526
08-163528
02-163528
09-163888
03-163888
10-163046
04-163889

[flyerkg]

This is great to see Prowlers never die! I have been keeping older versions of MSFS for historical renderings. I look forward to seeing the VMAQ squadrons!

[Garysb]

Does it have hover taxi ?


Kidding looks great John

Cheers

Gary

[Jonjon]

Oups
Sorry for my VAQ-140 serials, you should read beside them AG-50x... My mistake
Fred

[John Young]

No problem Fred. I'm not quite ready yet for the serials so I'll see what anyone else contributes and then produce a list that I can use to go and hunt for photographs for the final paints. Thanks everyone for you kind comments and the numbers so far.

John

[John Young]

Chris, in your list of serials above, VMAQ-4 (RM) has a title, but no serials. Was that intentional or did you miss pasting them please?

John

[TheFoufure]

Just to pre-empt the question - will I also make the A-6 Intruder? Possibly, I'll see how I feel about it when I finish Prowling.

John

It could be cool to have a A-6 of course, but also the EA-6A (dual seats prowler) and the KA-6D (tanker)

for EA-6B, I also have another book with serial, but no units. Only serial list. Its from 2017. I'll check that this week-end.

[bismarck]

Such a good news! Something to add to my Carrier set up.

Giorgio

[BAe146]

This is what I can gather from photos from Airliners.net, Jetphotos.net, airplane-pictures.net, planespotters.net, and seaforces.org

VMAQT-1
163045 CB-03
163397 CB-02
163530 CB-04
163031 CB-01
162228 CB-00

VMAQ-2
163889 CY-04
163046 CY-00
163526 CY-01
163528 CY-02
163888 CY-03

VMAQ-3
158542 MJ-01
161242 MJ-02
163032 MJ-03
163400 MJ-00
163524 MJ-04

VMAQ-4
161885 RM-09
162936 RM-05
163033 RM-08
163047 RM-007
163398 RM-06

VAQ-129
162227 NJ-910
162935 NJ-903
163048 NJ-900
160788 NJ-905
164402 NJ-900
158810 NJ-901

VAQ-131 In transition during 2014
161882 NE-503
163396 NE-502

VAQ-133 In transition 2014
163404 NG-502
163399 NG-500

VAQ-134
164401 AJ-501
161884 AJ-503
163886 AJ-500
163890 AJ-502
163030 AJ-504

VAQ-140
161779 AG-501
161881 AG-502
163521 AG-500
163527 AG-503

VAQ-142
161245 NK-500
163891 NK-503
163887 NK-501
160434 NK-502

[John Young]

Well done for those. I was part way through the same exercise this morning and found a few numbers, but not as comprehensively as your list. I'll check the photographs as I do the paints to ensure I use the last scheme that was applied.

Many thanks - most useful.

John

[flyerkg]

Very good dig on all those BuNos! I used seaforces.org for the Osprey repaints I did a few years ago. There was a time when the AMARC was my source for finding old serials and BuNos for retired aircraft http://www.amarcexperience.com/ui/index.php