Midway's Hangar: The Restoration Facility for the USS MIDWAY museum

Midway's Hangar
The Restoration Facility for the USS MIDWAY museum
(Currently known as The San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum, on the USS Midway CV-41)

The F9F-6/8 Cougar was the swept-wing version of the Grumman F9F Panther fighter. It was first flown in September 1951, with the Navy receiving operational F9F-6s in November of 1952. After the Korean War, Cougars served with many Navy and Marine operational squadrons in succession to the earlier Panthers. They were also the first swept-wing aircraft used by the Navy's Blue Angels aerobatic team, which flew them from 1955 to 1958. The F9F-8P version was given an extended nose to house a number of cameras for reconnaissance purposes. It is believed that there are only a handful of F9F-8P aircraft surviving today.
(source: United States Navy Aircraft since 1911 by Gordon Swanborough and Peter Bowers)

Due to a lack of landing gear, the Cougar sits rather ingloriously on mattresses and wooden palettes. We are obviously searching for F-9F landing gear, so if you have some in your garage, let us know!

You can see how the rear surfaces of the aircraft are being stripped of their old paint. In the background is a Phantom, with the tail of an Intruder on the far right.

This Cougar is in good company, with an F-4, an A-6, and the other Cougar parked nearby.

Here you can see the unusual nose of the recon Cougar. Though both camera windows were later painted over, one has been broken, allowing one to see into the roomy camera area.