Tamiya 1/48 A-1 Skyraider---armament attachments

[mark]

Greetings to all,

My second build is well underway, and I'm starting to think about armament.  This kit comes with all sorts of bombs, rockets, fuel pods, you name it......way too much to use.  How to pick "just 15!"

Then I saw this picture on line.  Wow!  Six (6) bombs on each inner mount!  That's awesome, and I'd like to make good use of all the bombs that came in this kit this way.

Does anyone make an aftermarket 1/48 attachment point that will turn a 1-point pylon into a 6-point, like what's being used in this picture?

I suspect I'll need to buy styrene and make my own, but I figured I'd ask first.

Anyone?

[deafpanzer]

Really like the pic... weapons OVERLOADED! Hope somebody can answer your question perhaps Doog or Jimmy?

[JimD]

The pylon being used on the inner stations is called a multiple ejector rack (MER). You can find them in a lot of modern jet kits. But yes there are aftermarket versions. Off the top of my head I know of the Eduard one found here:

store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/edu648227.htm (they are out of stock but you could likely find it somehwhere).

There's probably more that I'm not familiar with though.

[deafpanzer]

You see? We could count on our wingy guys here... LOL Thanks Jimmy! +1 karma for you!

[mark]

Is that Eduard kit "resin"?

My kids have all sorts of figurines made of that stuff...and when they break, nothing will put them back together!  Not epoxy, not CA....nothing!

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but "resin" scares me off.....

( I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the info, though!   Thanks!)

EDIT:  Now that I know what these are called, Googling becomes much easier!. Looks like the Hasagawa Weapons kit "A" comes with a few MER racks....plus an awesome selections of armament.   Anyone have any experience with this kit?  How's the detail?

[moramarth]

This has what you need, but only two MERs and two TERs...
www.hasegawa-model.co.jp/product_g/x48-1/
AND EVEN MORE BOMBS!

Italeri used to do something similar (albeit less refined) for inclusion in their kits, but that was several decades ago...

Cheers,

M

[mark]

Hasegawa 1/48 Weapons "A"....ordered & on the way!

[wing_nut]

Fear not the resin. The figures your kids have could be vinyl. You won't have any problems using CA on this stuff. Ti is going to look sweet with a full load.

[mark]

~sigh~

So I got the bomb kit, and assembled a whole lot of the armament.....Painted, detailed. Nice.

Mounted six (6) M117 bombs on each MER, as per the picture above. They look good!

Then, with the plane upside down sitting in a cradle, I went to test-fit them to the inner (not center) pylons. Problems immediately appeared.

- first, with the kit constructed with the "flaps down" (as a grounded aircraft would sit), the rearmost bombs hit the flap. Not by much, but still...there was contact. So I painstakingly retracted the flaps just a wee lil' bit, so there was no more contact.

- but next, and worse, with the plane turned right-side up, the rearmost bombs make contact with the ground. This aircraft, being a tail-dragger, doesn't allow for much clearance at all.

To make these "fit", the MER assembly would need to be positioned so far forward on the pylon that they would stick WAY out beyond the leading edge of the wing, which would be very wrong. And not just "technically wrong", but "absurd looking".

So what's going on here?

I did a little more research, and....S-O-A-B!

- M117 bombs (which is what the pic above looked like to me) were never slung from a Skyraider (irrespective of the fact that such ordnance is included in the Tamiya kit). How did I miss that fact in my initial research? The ordnance in the pic above, I'm guessing, are Mk82 bombs...and now I need to somehow salvage my MER racks and remove the M117 bombs.

Nothing like a week's work totally wasted.

[wbill76]

Tough break Mark but at least you have a technical answer and not a structural one in terms of the kit/bomb combination! The latter would've been a lot harder to fix I'm guessing. Hang in there!