F-4J outboard pylons

[StevenJ]

It's been a long time since these hands have held bare plastic and I've recently opened up a partially started 1/48 Hasegawa F-4J. I wish to build it with the outboard pylons installed; however, they have these two huge rectangular cutouts in them for what is called maybe a sway brace and yet I don't see anything that fits into these cutouts on any of the sprues. Am I missing something?

[PlasticWeapons]

Yes! You're missing the Hasegawa Weapons Sets that contain sway braces to fill in those pylons' spaces. :)

[Ishthe47guy]

If you just need empty pylons, you can cut off the pylons off the outbd tanks.

[Andre]

If you just need empty pylons, you can cut off the pylons off the outbd tanks.

Not quite - the shapes of the seperate outboard pylon differs from those integral with the outboard tanks.

See Fujimi's 1/72nd Phantom kits, which have both outboard tanks and seperate pylons.

Cheers,

Andre

[StevenJ]

Yes! You're missing the Hasegawa Weapons Sets that contain sway braces to fill in those pylons' spaces. :)

Thanks. Luckily, I do have two weapons sets.

Typically, USN units in our Vietnam War kept their outboard pylons installed due to limited time and carrier deck space: what a waste to have to buy an entire weapon set just to get some sway braces. Unfortunately, I am not good at whittling plastic so creating on my own would pose troublesome. Thus, this makes me now want to then actually put some weapons on the outboard pylons rather than my initial thinking. My plan was for a total of six 82s on the inboards but now I'll have to look around for photos...maybe additional four CBUs on the outboards? Or no pylon at all... hmmm.

Trimming the pylon doesn't give you the correct shape for the pylon, unfortunately. Good idea, though.

Steven

[Gene K]

Steven,

Long time since I've seen your name - last time, I thought you were on the East coast.

As concerns Phantom pylons and what was carried on them, that's a recurring theme on ARC, so here are just a few links:

http://arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=203326&st=0&p=1925094

http://arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=149030&hl=pylon

http://arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=146427&hl=pylon

http://arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=165857&st=0&p=1529856&hl=pylon

http://arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=203644&st=0&p=1927163&hl=f-4%20pylons

http://arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=137235&hl=pylon

Steve has made the new forum search engine better than the old, so suggest a couple of searches.

Gene K

Edited November 8, 2014 by Gene K

[PlasticWeapons]

Yup, I still have yet to finish that F-4J of mine. Thanks for digging it up Gene. :)

Edited May 5, 2011 by PlasticWeapons

[StevenJ]

Gene, thanks for all of those links: good read. I'm still in the same place I've been in for the past 10-years and the same city for my entire life and never lived on the east coast.

I thought I once saw a photo of a USN Phantom with three 82s on each inboard and CBUs on each outboard but it could be my imagination. It sounds like an interesting loadout. But the USN always had to be careful with center of gravity and I'm not sure if this was an actual loadout ever used. I wanted just empty pylons for the outboards but if I have to use the only sway braces from the weapon set, I may as well use some weapons too.