F-15 drop tanks. 1/72 scale.

[Ash Pitcher]

Hello, 

I am hoping to find a pair of 600gal wing external fuel tanks for an F-15C I'm putting together please. Hoping someone might have a set kicking around in the spares box. Happy to pay of course. 

Thanks in advance.

 

Ash 

Edited December 26, 2022 by Ash Pitcher
Spelling edit

[Quixote74]

Hi Ash -

 

Welcome to the forums!  You may have missed it since it's waaaayyy down toward the bottom of the forum index, but there is a "classifieds" section where posts like yours should typically be placed.  Making a parts request like this, you could post in either the "Spares Box" forum, or a "Want-To-Buy" in the Buy/Sell forum.

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/forum/22-the-spares-box-add-scale-to-your-title/

 

To share a few technical notes to be aware of where 1:72 F-15 drop tanks are concerned:

 

First, beware that some kits, most notably the otherwise outstanding GWH F-15 family, have drop tanks that are not the correct shape (ends being too tapered, vs. the real thing having a cylindrical center section).

 

Second, several 1:72 F-15 toolings (Hasegawa, Airfix, and "old tool" Academy) include a full set of drop tanks, so spares from one those kits should be relatively easy to come by (actually IIRC Hasegawa provides 4, one more than the max load).

 

Third, late-model F-4Es, F-4Gs, RF-4Es, and F-4EJs used a "supersonic" 600-gallon centerline tank that for 1:72 modeling purposes is the same as the F-15's drop tanks.  To the best of my knowledge Hasegawa's "modern" (circa 1990) tooling includes both the original and Eagle-style tanks on a common sprue that's in *every* Phantom kit from that tooling.  So any boxing that uses the old-style tank (All Navy/Marine variants, plus F-4C/D, and others) includes a spare Eagle-style tank. So this could give you another option for advertising for spares, or if you're interested in building one of the relevant Phantom variants and only need one Eagle tank you could get the Hasegawa kit and use the extra tank on your F-15.

 

One other note: a couple of the kits described above refer to "old tool" or "new tool" - kit manufacturers sometimes release new versions of popular subjects, but sometimes keep the older versions in circulation because they are cheaper to produce and sell (and the molds to make them are already paid for).  If you aren't sure if a specific kit is an "old tool" or "new tool" the best resource to check is scalemates.com, which shows release histories and box art for each kit/tooling grouped by manufacturer. If you're still not sure, feel free to ask here!

 

Best of luck on your parts search!

[Ash Pitcher]

Hi Quixote, 

 

Thank you very much for all the technical info, much appreciated. 

I thought I had posted in the right forum, I'll try again, thanks for the heads up. 

I'm all over Scalemates, very useful site. 

Thank you again for your help. 

 

Ash

[fasteagle12]

Where are you located (it isn't in your profile)?   I may have either F-15 or F-4 wing tanks (I think they are the same).  If you're in the US. I'll look.  It's a pain to fill out the custom forms if you're not in the US.

[Quixote74]

52 minutes ago, fasteagle12 said:

Where are you located (it isn't in your profile)?   I may have either F-15 or F-4 wing tanks (I think they are the same).  If you're in the US. I'll look.  It's a pain to fill out the custom forms if you're not in the US.

 

FYI, for the Phantom it is only the 600 gallon centerline tank (and the "late model" version of that) that is also used on the F-15.  The Phantom's wing tanks are generally similar in overall shape but only 370 gallons each, i.e. much smaller.

 

Good shot of the Eagle tank for reference (centerline and wing tanks on the F-15 are identical):

 

 

[fasteagle12]

13 minutes ago, Quixote74 said:

 

FYI, for the Phantom it is only the 600 gallon centerline tank (and the "late model" version of that) that is also used on the F-15.  The Phantom's wing tanks are generally similar in overall shape but only 370 gallons each, i.e. much smaller.

 

Good shot of the Eagle tank for reference (centerline and wing tanks on the F-15 are identical):

 

 

Thanks for the correction.  I went ahead and pulled out the tanks and they are the same size as the F-15 tanks from the Academy kit so I guess they were the center tanks.