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Late F-105D Ordnance


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Picked up TwoBobs "Wraparound Thuds" sheet in the braille scale sale. In this timeframe (Thunderchief sunset, early '80s) were the Thuds cleared for anything except fuel tanks, Mk. 82 slicks and M117s? I've never seen the 3000 lb bombs or Bullpups photographed this late. I'm happy building one with 8x 500 lb bombs and the two wing tanks, but if something even more interesting is available, I'll seriously consider it.

Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

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I live on the north side of Tinker AFB where the 465TFS flew Thuds for about 10 years. I never saw them with anything but drop tanks, wing and center line, and MER bomb racks. The only photos I've seen for the period you are talking about shows the same configuration. Bullpups were long out of the inventory by the time Hill got the D model Thuds.

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Picked up TwoBobs "Wraparound Thuds" sheet in the braille scale sale. In this timeframe (Thunderchief sunset, early '80s) were the Thuds cleared for anything except fuel tanks, Mk. 82 slicks and M117s? I've never seen the 3000 lb bombs or Bullpups photographed this late. I'm happy building one with 8x 500 lb bombs and the two wing tanks, but if something even more interesting is available, I'll seriously consider it.

Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

Which airplane do you plan to build? I supplied photos to Bob Sanchez for all three tail numbers for these decals, though he didn't seem to give me much credit. I'll post them here if you want.

Scott W.

Edited by Scott R Wilson
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Thank you all for your prompt responses!

Spruemeister - Don't think Bullpups are in my future for these markings, though they are cool. I may want to build a look-alike silver D model with a couple of the heavy (AGM-12C) of these missiles someday. I have a book with a great photo with this load.

EFD3 - You are confirming my suspicions that it may be heavy iron time.

Mr. Wilson - Haven't made up my mind yet which one. This is not a near term project as I haven't even sourced the kit yet! Went to two LHSs today and came up dry; this may need to wait. Sorry you didn't get proper credit for your contributions to the decals. I have seen many of your shots of these three posted around this site (and a few others, perhaps?), but if you have other planes/schemes with weapons, even training rounds, I'd be VERY happy to see them. :thumbsup:

I do have a copy of document F-105D-31, which does list some other options for weapons, like LAU-3/A rocket pods, Mk. 83 (on an AF jet!?!) and 84 bombs, BLU-27 fire bombs, and SUU-30 cluster bomb dispensers. I may try to pick something here for the outboard stations. The only ECM pods listed on this document (dated June 1970) are QRC-160 and -335. Were any later types such as ALQ-101 or -119 ever used?

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Mr. Wilson - Haven't made up my mind yet which one. This is not a near term project as I haven't even sourced the kit yet! Went to two LHSs today and came up dry; this may need to wait. Sorry you didn't get proper credit for your contributions to the decals. I have seen many of your shots of these three posted around this site (and a few others, perhaps?), but if you have other planes/schemes with weapons, even training rounds, I'd be VERY happy to see them. :thumbsup:

I went through my collection, and all of the ANG and AFRES D-model Thuds I have photos of have just wing tanks; wing tanks and centerline tank; or wing tanks and a centerline pylon with a MER with either no ordnance, a travel pod on the MER, or BDU-33 practice bombs on the MER. I'm sure on their "summer camp" deployments they dropped inert full sized bombs but I don't have any photos to prove it. I don't have a single post-Vietnam Thud photo of one carrying any kind of ECM pod. On the other hand, it's your model, do it as you like. I bought my 1/32 Thud some years ago at Hobby Lobby, it was packaged as "HobbyCraft" but is the same plastic as Trumpeter but was slightly less expensive, much less after using a Hobby Lobby 50 percent off coupon. After they sold out I haven't seen another one there. I'm sure you can still order it.

For schemes, you have the three Hill AFRES jets on the TwoBobs sheet. Other than that the ANG birds were all painted the standard SEA white belly or SEA wraparound so far as I know. In the late 60s and early 70s you could find some that had different than standard patterns in the camouflage, and during the SEA conflict there were a number painted in the standard SEA pattern but had one of the greens and the tan reversed from the normal pattern. So there's really not too many choices to make.

Scott W.

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From the above link:

07-Dec-65

The F-105D pilots in "Ebony" flight from the 469 TFS, 6234 TFW, took off at 07:15 and refueled

from Red Anchor 25 at 08:05 at 21,000 feet. Their flight lineup was:

#1 - Maj Fred T. Coleman in 61-0045

#2 - 1Lt Jerry Donald Driscoll flying 59-1820

#3 - Capt Steven R. Sanders flying 62-4315

#4 - Maj Robert M. Krone flying 58-1163 on his 14th mission

Spare - Capt William S. Secker, Jr. in 61-0181

The flight lineup changed when Maj Coleman ground aborted. Capt Sanders moved up to flight

lead with Capt Secker, the spare, becoming #3. The flight's mission was MiG CAP for EB-66 ECM

aircraft (call sign "Flamingo") over Laos and North Vietnam. The F-105s each carried four AIM-

9Bs. The mission lasted 2 hours 20 minutes.

Thud MiG CAP :woot.gif:

Jari

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Finn-

The very idea of Thud MiG-CAP is so wrong (though a build like this will get the judges scratching their heads)! Unfortunately the idea of doing this with a c.1983 build doesn't appeal to me. Maybe in the original Vietnam setting I'd think about it.

Thanks for sharing that site!

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If you are interested in earlier F-105s, and if you can find it, I recommend The Republic F-105 by Robert D. Archer. This was published by Aero Publishers, Inc. in 1969 as number one in the American Aircraft Series. To the best of my knowledge no other book of this series was ever released. Multitudes of b&w photos of different color and marking variations, subtypes, etc. are supplied. There are a couple of shots of 560th TFS jets with dart gunnery targets under their wings. Seems funny to be running A-A gunnery practice for a strike aircraft like this, but given the mission mentioned above, and the need to protect oneself from NVA MiGs, this makes some sense. Another cool load, which I may use for my build, is a c/l tank, Mk. 84 2000 lb bombs on the inner pylons and Mk. 82 500 lb slicks on the outboards. The plane shown is 62-4242 of the 469th TFS / 388th TFW at Korat. No date given, but a white JV tail code is present.

One thing I did find interesting is that there is NO mention of the F-105G. I've read that F-105G conversions began in 1967, so they should have been out there as the book was being produced (some of the books photos date from '68). Was this program secret at that time? Not sure how you can keep a type like this secret!

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