Drop tanks shortcut
-
This was before I played Falcon 4 AF, but even then, I could never understand why they “evaded” the missile that way and did all of that fancy flying….
i mean
it’s cool but man
what kind of fuel are those things RUNNING ON
the one has probably completed the average SAM motor burn 50 times already and has done three circles against that plane
this isn’t a SAM dodge this is a dogfight lel
-
S-J for takeoff can be a requirement for a safe takeoff. If AB blows out or it’s needed to reject. In certain marginal conditions shedding the tanks is the weight difference needed.
But generally if you have time to configure a specific S-J then that’s what you use. If you don’t have time to be selective that indicates you shouldn’t be selective. “I have an unforeseen emergency that requires me to punch off immediately some but not all of my jettisonable stores” is just not a realistic statement. The only possible case I can think of is that you know for a fact you need the external fuel to make it home but even then if stripping stores makes any sense I’d probably strip them all even if it doomed me to a controlled ejection a few hundred miles down the road. The difference between an E-J and an S-J is maybe 20 seconds. If that time actually matters, E-J and work with the consequences every time.
Mission planning with deliberate tank jettison is a real thing. Operation Opera for example had a planned tank jettison. It’s pretty rare in the BMS world. The availability of AAR and the short distances makes it extremely rare. Jettisoning tanks as a habit just to get home earlier or because it looks cool like in the movies will rapidly catch up to you in a campaign setting. Shortages of certain items like tanks, TGPs, and jammers really stings. Losing them is always done begrudgingly.
-
in 4.32 there was no real downside to detaching tanks.
anecdotally though, 4.33 really punishes it. squadron stocks of certain weapons and stores seem much, much lower now on average, including jammers, SDBs and tanks, and if you lose all of them prepare to wait multiple days to get any more, worst case.
this wouldn’t be so bad but the falcon is not exactly known for it’s long loiter time, and that includes the tanks. without them, well. it’s doable i guess. if you take the tanker with you every mission :^)
-
If you are doing well and you frag lots of C-17 resupply’s yourself it should be no problem.
I just finished a 24 hour campaign and I believe I was resupplied at the ~12 hour mark -
Its worth noting that wing tanks are not that big a deal to aircraft performance, and that viper drivers end up flying AHC and BFM with tanks as well as without.
For another circumstance, when that report about issues with the F-35 came out, on account of its performance against a viper? The viper in question was fighting with wing tanks on.
The other noteworthy part of BMS is the incredibly short distances involved. In Korea, we fly from the most forward deployed bases in the world. In Israel, they become even closer on occasion. There is rarely even a need for refueling, let alone intentional jettison of stores for range. Once you start looking at extended low level ingress, or TMR greater than 600 miles, is the point where you start thinking of pre push fueling, or dropping tanks.
Refueling is an expensive exercise, but its much cheaper than throwing away fuel tanks, contrary to the claims made earlier in this thread.
-
…I once got reprimanded pretty good for planning a RL mission that didn’t bring the tanks back…then I had to go back and plan the fuel and route without offing the tanks before the crew accepted my planning. Never did that again…and pretty sure nobody else does either.
-
…I once got reprimanded pretty good for planning a RL mission that didn’t bring the tanks back…then I had to go back and plan the fuel and route without offing the tanks before the crew accepted my planning. Never did that again…and pretty sure nobody else does either.
I can imagine that aircrew colleagues are not shy about making their views known!
-
I can imagine that aircrew colleagues are not shy about making their views known!
…you imagine correctly!
-
HTS and HAD to pin point SAM sites
From what I heard the new variants of HTS are quite precise, they can work in a net trough data link and provide precise coordinates. It have been discussed on forum some time ago.
-
From what I heard the new variants of HTS are quite precise, they can work in a net trough data link and provide precise coordinates. It have been discussed on forum some time ago.
Yep. But not in the HUD. AFIAK It does not extract coordinates per say to be used like most ppl would like in the game. It works via network but IMO, procedures are specific (geometry for proper gonio) and confidential. If I am not wrong, it is only possible with some dedicated airframe (CJ).
http://www.f-16.net/f-16-news-article1994.html
Anyway … I think we shouldn’t (and, IMHO, we won’t) try to implement it.
-
Before we deployed to Iraq we spent about a month rebuilding all the drop tanks we could get working. Ironically we call them drop tanks yet we never drop them unless it is an emergency.
Also, the tanks I have seen the insides of have more than just levers and they don’t even have levers. They have three chambers that each have a probe and each probe having a high level and low level thermistor. The tank also contains a TOP and TOT sensor. The probes are long tubes that use electrical resistance to calculate how much fuel they contain. We use something called a fuel quantity test set to test the probes and thermistors. Drop tanks are very valuable to an expeditionary unit not because of the cost but because of the space they take up. The only time we jettison tanks is if it is absolutely necessary in order to save the A/C or personnel.
Drop tanks are also not very reliable. Getting them hung and to transfer correctly can be very difficult. I remember long low power runs trying to get the tanks to transfer hoping not to overheat and blow the mains. Once they are hung and transfer good they will usually be OK until they are taken off, but often putting them right back on makes them fail again.
And, the worst is when you go to drop tanks and no one passed down that the tanks didn’t transfer and we drop 1000 lbs into two guys hands. You learn really quick to not put your fingers in any of the gaps in the fins because it will rip your finger/hand/arm off if it is full. Then when the tank hits the ground it shoots geysers of JP all over everyone and the A/C.
A little history about the drop tank games, and we do call them drop tank games. That is how we usually find out we are about to deploy. We start playing drop tank games. The reason the military got so stingy on drop tanks is because when a probe would go out a unit would just store the tank in their squadron and order a new one. Once the fleet realized that all the units had hundreds of tanks with only one sensor out stored away instead of fixing them, the fleet locked the tanks down and would not send us more tanks unless we could not make enough good ones by cannibalizing from the bad ones. We spend months doing drop tank games all day every day. We test all the sensors then remove the ones that are good and put them in the ones that need them. After we have exhausted all the cani parts then we order the probes. By the time we have fixed as many as we can, we usually only need to order a set or two if any. Then we hang most of the birds with 4 tanks each and fly onto the boat. We then drop the tanks and finish any cards or quals needed. Once we are ready to rock, we hang tanks again, only two per A/C and hang the rest on the ceiling of the hanger bay.
-
+1…what Viking said.
-
+1 Viking, great info and a great story. What you said is applicable even for Vietnam. Even there the tanks were not dropped at regular basis, except emergency.
You can read for example in the book: US Marine Corps F-4 Phantom II Units of the Vietnam War the following on page 21: Most missions were flown with two wing tanks or with ordnance on all stations …. Wing tans were often in short supply, and they usually stayed on the aircraft for long periods.
Again an excerpt from the book US Navy F-4 Phantom II Units of the Vietnam War 64-68, page 46: Johnson scored a probable kill for example - the tanks were retained because the F-4Bs concerned had already accelerated past the safe jettison speed. The tanks were, in any case, often in short supply and many pilots felt that heir 250-lb empty weight was manageable.
I cannot find it now, but I also read that one commander forbade his pilots dropping their tanks in Vietnam unless in grave danger.
The tanks were and still are more important for the squadron than bombs as you often cannot conduct efficient combat operations without them and are basically welded to an aircraft.
-
Another consideration for those thinking about dropping tanks but not ordinance: Jinking around trying to dogfight with ordinance may overstress the pylons and leave you with a hung bomb on your wing.
-
Or a fuze that doesn’t explode. The carriage limits (G, airspeed, etc.) on weapons rarely exceed those of tanks. As soon as you exceed the store carriage limits all bets are off if they work like they should.