When to blow my tanks: what is s.o.p. for stores jettison of my fuel tanks?
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What are the proper situations for blowing the tanks? Soon as I see and enemy fighter; when they are empty; under missile lock? Thanks for all the help fellas!
Dirty
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What are the proper situations for blowing the tanks? Soon as I see and enemy fighter; when they are empty; under missile lock? Thanks for all the help fellas!
Dirty
There isn’t a cut and dried answer for some of your hypotheticals. I would say if you are in a dogfight with a fighter that is going to outmaneuver you if you do not then obviously get rid of them. If you see an enemy MiG-19 I think you are safe to keep the wing bags. No do not get rid of them simply because they are empty. Missile lock it depends on the distance to the shooter and the missile. If you are employing proper defense for the fighter/missile type then no you can keep them and still shoot down bad guys. If you are not and you might lose the plane if you do not get rid of them then of course lose them. Better a lost pair of tanks than an entire aircraft.
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What are the proper situations for blowing the tanks? Soon as I see and enemy fighter; when they are empty; under missile lock? Thanks for all the help fellas!
Dirty
Also, something that may not be so obvious to you, is the value of empty tanks logistically speaking. “BMS wise”, your squadron can run out of them if you drop them too often. For the technical part, you had an answer from a Viper driver (if I remember correctly?), so…
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Irl you only drop if emergency. I only drop in BMS if I intend on fighting or going defensive against a threat.
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Attachment 8 has a note about this:
A/A: Imminient merge; inside MAR with no supporting fighter versus an aware threat.
A/A: SAMs guiding, before last ditch, or to maintain threat reaction maneuver potential. -
+1 what Ripper said - you only blow tanks if you are running an Emergency procedure checklist that says to JETT tanks.
EDIT: …although, you can clearly hear “jettison” calls in this vid…so to quote - “you’re on your own”.
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Attachment 8 has a note about this:
A/A: Imminient merge; inside MAR with no supporting fighter versus an aware threat.
A/A: SAMs guiding, before last ditch, or to maintain threat reaction maneuver potential.Ain’t nothing but quality comes from you, brother!