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Mirage III/5/50 Drop tanks?


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Finishing up a 1/72 Mirage 5 and looking for some information on the drop tanks that could carry 4 250kg Bombs. Revell includes them in their old 1/72 Mirage IIIE kit and I have some close-up photos of the bomb detail on the tanks but need info on the tank itself, length, diameter, etc, they appear to be a variant of the supersonic tanks but none of my Mirage plans or reference material have what I need to make sure they are accurate. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Jim Barr

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Hi Jim,

not sure if this helps but I once asked a similar question on HS and got these replies.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/mess...Revell+kit+ones

Those particular droptanks are called RPK-10 droptanks. See if you can google "RPK-10". Might prove fruitful.

HTH.

ps. Could you post those close-up photos of the bomb detail on the tanks? I want to build an Australian Mirage IIIO with those.

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Could you post those close-up photos of the bomb detail on the tanks? I want to build an Australian Mirage IIIO with those.

Thanks for the "RPK-10" but no luck on a Google.

Here are two photos, the top one I just received from Amaru Tincopa over on HyperScale who was kind enough to respond to my droptank question over there, the second is one I took back in 1998 of a Venezuelan Mirage that shows the rest of the mechanism when the bombs are loaded.

Hope this helps

Regards

Jim Barr

tank01st7.jpg

bomb01po2.jpg

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Finishing up a 1/72 Mirage 5 and looking for some information on the drop tanks that could carry 4 250kg Bombs. Revell includes them in their old 1/72 Mirage IIIE kit and I have some close-up photos of the bomb detail on the tanks but need info on the tank itself, length, diameter, etc, they appear to be a variant of the supersonic tanks but none of my Mirage plans or reference material have what I need to make sure they are accurate. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Jim Barr

Hello Jim,

The RPK-10 tanks were the same capacity as the standard supersonic tanks (500litres/110 Imp. gal). From memory they were a little longer than the standard 500 litre tank as the bomb release mechanism did take up a little bit of the internal space. How much I can't remember off the top of my head. Motty would probably know more than me about this. He may be along shortly and be able to answer more positively.

I have several of those old Revell kits in my stash, but haven't seen them for so long. I thought they had the standard supersonic tanks as well as the RPK-10s and the 1300 litre subsonic tanks.

Cheers,

Ross.

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I thought they had the standard supersonic tanks as well as the RPK-10s and the 1300 litre subsonic tanks.

The old Revell kits I have only have two sets of tanks, the RPK-10s & some subsonic ones. The RPK-10 are exactly the same size, both length and diameter as the supersonic tanks in the High Plane kits, and from looking at photos it would appear that they should be a bit longer for the relationship between the bombs, their spacing, and end of the tanks to all match. (This is assuming that the bombs in the Revell kit are accurate which is a leap of faith.) However the supersonic ones in the Heller IIIE / R / 5 / BA are a scale 28 inches longer, and the ones in the PJ Production Mirage 5 BA / BR kit are 21 inches shorter, hence the reason for the original post. :woot.gif: (It is not surprising that the tanks in the PJ kit are shorter as most of the major components of that beautifully cast but rather expensive kit, when compared to plans and the 3 kits mentioned above, comes up being under scale.)

Regards

Jim Barr

Edited by Jim Barr
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  • 1 year later...
  • 8 months later...

The RPK10 profile is different to the 110Gall Supersonic tank. Both contain 110galls of fuel however the RPK10 also has to make provision for up to 4 Alkan release units and an intervolmeter in the rear of the tank. To do this the profile is less streamlined. Looking at the front end you will notice the cone angle completely different.

RPK10 dimensions are Length 5.94m and diam of 394mm

rpk102.jpg

The Revell (both 1/72 and 1/32 kits) is a bastardised 110 gall Supersonic tank.

The Revell tank is 174mm long, the RPK10 in 1/32scale should be 185.6mm long so Revell's version is 11.6mm short. It represents a 110Gall Supersonic* tank to which Revell have added some bumps to represent the fixed sway braces.

*And I think they got this dimensionally wrong as well. The net result is a tank that doesn't really represent an RPK10 or accurately a standard 110gall Supersonic tank. The standard 110g Supersonic tank was 5256mm so in 1/32scale should be 164.25mm. The Revell tank is 174mm is around 10mm to long to be a supersonic tank and 11.6mm to short to be an RPK10 :thumbsup:

On a side note there are 2 different types of 110gall Supersonic tanks. The most common is the unfinned variant which is not jettison able. A second variant developed by the Israelis has 3 fins at the rear of the tank. The tank itself is also mounted slightly further aft than the standard tank. These tanks are jettisonable if the jettison charges are installed. The RAAF used both types of supersonic tanks but jettison charges were never fitted to finned "Israeli's"

Edited by Ivank
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