In truth Helldiver, there were 17 F8F-1 Beacats to serve with the Blue Angels between late 1946 season midway through the 1949 season.
Are you sure you are not speaking of 1946 or 1947 season Bearcats HD? The first Bearcats to have the scripted Blue Angels team name on the cowling was early during the 1948 season. This script is carried on to this day. I have two references to Blue Angel Bearcats and both state that the team name was applied for the 1948 season and carried over through the 1949 season until the team transitioned to Panther jets. In truth, I should close off the gun ports. In my plastic modeling zen, i would never be permitted to not do so. But the sim community is more forgiving on the whole. And most of the time, together we generally work out a solution. I bummed about Vertigo's F6F-3/% Hellcat series nit having the correct 18-cyinger P & W 2800 radial, seems the Bearcat suffers such injustice also. Noth had two banks of seven cylinders. Picking nit off sweaters, I know, and one really can't see the engines that well, particularly in the Bearcat. But of the two, the Bearcat is an absolute delight to fly. She does all commands just right, even landing is not at all difficult. I find landing low speed rag wings much harder.
It's a great work mates, save the radial, and of an aircraft that has always been close to my heart. It's entire VC layout and view from the bubble canopy make flying from the VC all the more real and sensible.
I did the additional Blue Angel paint using Dino's kit, have a couple more in mind. I never worked of F8Fs like HD, but I saw 'em when I was just a kid and just something about that stubby little airplane burned a cockle in my heart.
The wing tip failures you speak of were the shear-off tips, which were removed from many Bearcats and replaced with metal on others.
Attached are two photos of Blue Angels Bearcats; the first during the 1948 season, the later during the first half of the 1949 season.