When the Vought Cutlass was wheeled out of the hangar for its first flight, on September 29th, 1948, hopes were high that its performance would be as startling as its appearance. But buried inside the fuselage were two spoilsports: Westinghouse J34 engines. Ironically, what may have saved the entire program from being terminated in 1951 was the underperformance of a stablemate engine, the Westinghouse J40, which the US Navy had specified as the engine for many of the competing aircraft in the future application of its seapower.
Service use of the Cutlass displayed shortcomings that led to the infamous nickname of Gutless among the pilots it was inflicted on, and subsequent changes to both the airframe and engine did little to halt its uncanny ability to create widows and orphans back on land.
In a bold move, Vought engineers decided that the engines the Navy wanted were the major problem and they made a switch to the British Rolls-Royce Avon, already tried and tested, and reliable. To accommodate the much higher airflow of the Avon, the intakes were enlarged by simply cutting them back to a wider point, and the exhaust diameter was also increased. The intake modification required the removal of the guns that were normally mounted on the top of them, but since one fault of the Avon was the possibility of flaming out when gun exhaust gases were ingested, this was not seen as serious enough to warrant the aircraft from continuing as a fighter, as it could switch to an all-missile offensive role with 4 AAM-N-2 Sparrow I air-to-air missiles.
The increase in performance was impressive, with some indications that it may have been overpowered, and wholesale changes in the airframe itself would be needed to truly exploit its new potential. This was deemed as too risky now that a solution to the power issues had been solved, and also now that newer aircraft would soon be coming along the pipe. But it did allow the Cutlass to remain in service well into the 1960s, and a year into the 1970s with shore-based reserve squadrons.
The Kit
The old Revell F 7U-3, first boxed in my birth year of 1953. Typical of the time, but it builds up into a solid feeling model that is certainly more than adequate for whiffing purposes. The new decal sheet in this 2010 issue is full of microscopic stencils, and covers two different aircraft, I chose to use the decals, but not the paint scheme, of Air Develoment Squadron Four (VX-4) at the Naval Missile Center, Point Mugu, California, in 1953.
New wheels were required, not because the kit ones are bad, but because they're bloody awful!
