Hawker Tempest V Fuel Tank Fairings

[chuck540z3]

I'm building the Special Hobby subject model and want to put fuel tanks on the wings.  The tank pylons/fairings are clear plastic which I initially thought was wrong, until I saw a few pics of the real deal.  It appears they are made of "clear acetate sheet" and some info on them can be found here:

 

Tempest Drop Tanks

 

Questions:

 

1)  Does anybody have a good pic of these pylons?  The ones I've found are not very good and the fine details are missing.

2)  Why were they made of clear acetate?  It seems so weird.

3)  Would painted fairings be accurate as well? 

 

Any information you could supply would be much appreciated!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

[Kagemusha]

This should answer quite a few of your questions, Paul Budzik scratch built a superb rendition, Paul did post the build on here, but sadly he checked out and the photos are no longer available, there's also this photo.

[GrahamF]

Hi Chuck I've got a scan of a close up picture of a row of them, I think this will explain all, if you email me at the Iconicair website I'll send it to you. The clear part was so that the ground crew could see the latches lock into the wing location points, when you see the photo it all makes sense.

Regards Graham 

Edited October 7, 2020 by GrahamF
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