Rajay seems to have pulled out a very obscure and little known or needed piece of the warbird business, made himself king of it and now preaches it to all without ever stopping to think that nobody besides him actually cares about it. It doesn't matter what you think somebody should call an airplane Rajay and I'd bet that not a single warbird owner will ever change their paperwork or habits because of your ranting. I'd even be willing to bet not a single warbird owner or operator is even slightly interested in anything you say or do.
Rajay wrote:
I don’t know about your Flight Manual. Maybe it was only a half-ass, reproduction copy that you picked up from some place like Essco for all I know. But you obviously missed the real point; of course the distinction mattered to the US Navy, that’s who created the different designation for the Eastern-built Wildcats and Avengers in the freakin’ first place! (And why.) If it had never “mattered” to the US Navy, they wouldn’t have ever called them an “FM-2” or “TBM” and every single Wildcat ever built would have been just another “F4F” and every single Avenger ever built would have carried just a “TBF” designation instead.
I wish you could have been part of a conversation I had with Dick Foote and another Wildcat owner down in Florida in the early 80s. Dick was a test pilot for Grumman and Vought and possibly GM. He said numerous times at several different venues that there was a bit of hanky-panky going on between Grumman and GM over the data plates, airframes and which company actually constructed certain Wildcats. So your argument about who built what and when isn't totally valid.