Hello Gentlemen,
I’ve been searching for plans or drawings showing the mounting bracket and installation for this tank which seems to have been referred to in 1944 as either the ‘standard’ or ‘cigar shaped’ 45 gallon external jettisonable fuel tank.
Two photos do show enough detail to see roughly what this mounting bracket looked like, but not enough to pin down some aspects of it (such as where the angled support rods attach at the front end). One is this one:-
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205219445
and the other is the famous photo with it being filled with beer and marked ‘XXX’ (IWM CH 13488 – no IWM online photo as yet).
I made enquiries with the RAF museum and was give some AVIA file references to search through at the national archives. These had plans for the tank installations on Typhoon and Firefly underwing stations, but whilst letters within often
referred to ‘see attached drawings’ for the Spitfire installation, the drawings were not included.
One letter in particular was saying that the bands around the tank need to be upgraded to 22G (22 guage steel?) and said ‘see installation drawings CD 43238/1 & 4’. Another referred to the ‘SAG 590’ series of drawings.
Does anybody out there know anything about where I might best try to look in order to try and find these please?
Or perhaps someone knows of some other plans or drawings somewhere out there? Any help would be very much appreciated.
According to the files, various companies made examples of these tanks, some of papier mashe construction and others of welded steel.
They were 84″ (7ft) long with a diameter of 15″ and were designed to hold as near as possible, 45 gallons of fuel.
Thank you very much for any help.
Bob Tomlin.
By: Bob T - 19th June 2014 at 17:04
[ATTACH=CONFIG]229329[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]229330[/ATTACH]
Is this the same fuel tank?
Jason
From just looking at the photos, then yes I think that they are the same type of fuel tank.
Here’s a photo of the tank again, but this time fitted to a Typhoon, showing the type of bracket that they did have detailed drawings of in the AVIA files at the national archives:-
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Hawker_Typhoon_fuel_tank_fitting_WWII_IWM_CL_1725.jpg
By: oldgit158 - 18th June 2014 at 17:41
[ATTACH=CONFIG]229329[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]229330[/ATTACH]
Is this the same fuel tank?
Jason
By: Bob T - 18th June 2014 at 16:56
Does this in any way help?
Hi Antoni,
Thank you for that.
Yes, I was aware that Eduard had made this accessory in 48th scale. It helps in that it confirms the general layout, but has been necessarily simplified slightly to enable it to be constructed in 48th scale and to make best use of their materials
I would think (by that I mean that it looks in the beer photo that the main mounting bracket might be ‘blades’ with the main longitudinal piece which runs above a good portion of the length of the tank having a ‘T’ shape section rather than being a solid block. Also, on the forward part of the bracket which eduard have replicated in etched brass, the ‘diagonal arms’ appear to be blades in the eduard version whereas they look like they might be rods on the real thing?).
Of course I don’t know what references Eduard have used and I think they’re to be commended for producing it, (I wish they’d do one in 32nd scale and I’d offer my help to do so if I could find the details) but if their main source was this beer photo, it’s unclear from the shot exactly where these diagonal rods actually fit at the tank, to what and how.
Here’s a page showing that photo and an article on the eduard product and the tank:-
http://www.themodellingnews.com/2013/09/review-eduards-brassin-spitfire-drop.html
I can confirm from wartime squadron diaries that aircraft crash landed due to problems switching between this and the main fuel tank.
According to files I saw at the national archives it also made the aircraft around 14mph slower at most altitudes due to the way it hung off the aircraft.
Thanks, Bob.
By: antoni - 18th June 2014 at 16:07
Does this in any way help?
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June 18, 2014 at 2:08 pm