All,
I’m wondering what your thoughts are regarding putting external stores on your airplane models. I’m working on a 1/72 sclae F-4J, and I’ve noticed that a lot of the photos I’ve looked at for reference show the planes without weapons and having only external fuel tanks. The Monogram kit that I have has ejector pin marks on a couple of the sidewinders and a couple of the bombs. They look like they’d be hell to clean up. So I’m thinking of leaving all but the two wing tanks off the plane.
On the other hand, a full load out would look impressive. Four sidewinders, four sparrows, two (maybe three) fuel tanks, and six 500 lb. bombs.
What do you guys do?
-Drew
P.S. If I include the weapons, I’d like to have them be the correct colors. Does anyone know of decals I could buy that have the colored stripes appropriate for sidewinders, sparrows, etc.?
I’d like to know where to get info or decals also for weapons. In my case however, it would be 1/32 soviet air-to-air missles.
Dana
I don’t care much for a fully loaded model… The stuff in kits is often poorly detailled and often overscale (fins in particular). But when I see a model where all the missiles and other stuff hanging under the wings have been well painted and detailled, I have to admit it does look more impressive…
Yea, I don’t usually even bother if the weapons can’t have a fair amount of detail. In my case, the kit came with nothing to detail the missles. At 1/32 scale, it would look pretty rough. So, I’m trying to make time now to start hunting for solutions.
Dana
I always start out wanting to sling everything under my fighters/attack aircraft, but it doesn’t always work out that way. I try to stay true to whatever version of the aircraft I choose and its payload. Copy?
Over and out.
I build a lot of my kits without any weapons installed. I have a 1/48 scale F-4D with only one AIM-9 painted blue installed on it. It doesn’t have any thing else hanging on it. Have you thought of hanging only the TER’s on the inboard pylons with out any bombs on them? It could be getting back from a mission or getting ready for ordinance to be up loaded.
A note of interest, Navy F-4’s usually only flew with the centerline tank installed. They only used the wing drop tanks when deploying from ship to shore or shore to ship.
The thing to do is whatever suits your tastes. Some look really good with full stores, others do not. If you want stores and can afford them, there are several aftermarket kits that have very nice missiles, bombs, etc. In particular, the Hasegawa weapons sets are very nice. It is a cheap alternative to cleaning some substandard ordinance.
demono69
Bones, have you tried linden hill yet? they’re called “supplier of all things Russian” and they have their own line of decals.
www.lindenhillimports.com
If they don’t have it maybe they have a site you could try. Best of luck
I’ve always thought that ww2 planes don’t look right with weapons and tanks hanging around. I like to do those bare, just like the designer imagined them. However, I’ve always felt that modern jets don’t quite look finished without ordinance, they just seem kinda bare to me without tanks and bombs and whatnot. I always put a full load on them. (I say always, I’ve done one of each.)
madda
except for war or alert statis, modern fighters fly with a captive aim9 for training. the only part of the missle used is the seeker head. some times f15s will carry 2 dummy 7’s or 120’s, these have no fins they’re just for weight. during excercises jets are loaded full up but all the live stuff is removed before any flying starts.
The thing that annoys me is that most kit pylons don’t have sway braces. I’ve bot a method for making them in 1/48th but it’s time consuming. In 1/72nd it’s very difficult indeed. But, once fitted they do improve the look. Surely they must be available in the aftermarket? If not, why not?
I assume you’re talking about the rods on the pylons that are usuallt up against the body of the ordenance? If so, yea. I’d like to find an easy way of reproducing that as well. Especailly at 1/32.
Dana
Maybe that’s my answer. I’ll throw on the three fuel tanks and and tell everyone that the plane is getting ready to deploy to its ship. 
Thanks for the answers, guys.
I’m still wondering if there are weapons decals anywhere.
Regards,
-Drew
Drew,
Sometimes aftermarket decal companies will “throw in” ordinance decals with a decal kit. It’s entirely up to the manufacturer, and some have them, some don’t, even from the same company. You may have to look at any sheets to see if they have them or not. Sorry to be so vague, but that’s the way they do it. They used to make separate sheets, but no one was buying them.
demono69