One of Brengun’s more recent releases is a photo-etch fret of drop tank gas caps for 1/72 US Navy aircraft. The set includes 5 different types of gas caps, with 9 of each type, so you can detail quite a large number of drop tanks with this set. The set does not include any instructions or information as to which gas caps go on what types of drop tanks, but from what I can tell from looking at the photo of some sample tanks with the caps installed on Brengun’s website. It appears that the caps are intended for World War II US Navy aircraft.

I had a set of drop tanks from the new Airfix Wildcat that I had not installed, so I dug out my Detail and Scale book on the Wildcat to see if I could determine which cap type was used on Wildcat tanks. Not surprisingly there were not too many photographs of the Wildcat’s drop tanks, but I did find one that showed a gas cap like the middle set on the photo-etch fret. The kit drop tanks have a raised circle on the top of the tank to represent the tank cap, so the first step was to sand this off. I then dug out my pinvise and compared my drill bits to the small gas cap parts until I found a drill bit slightly larger than the etch parts and I drilled a shallow hole where the raised kit detail used to be. I test fit the drop tank cap several times to make sure it looked right. As the gas caps are either flush with or slightly recessed on the actual tanks. I drilled the hole until the etch part was slightly recessed and then I attached it with superglue.

This is a really neat set, the only drawback is the complete lack of information as to which airplanes or drop tanks the caps go with. However, if you have some nice reference materials, or access to the internet, a little research should help you match the gas caps with the appropriate drop tanks.

Highly recommended. Thank you to Brengun for the review sample and to IPMS-USA for letting me review it.