Here are some extraordinary photographs showing how fuel tanks are being used today.
External tanks are extremely important for military aircraft as they provide fuel to integrate internal tanks and extend fighters and bombers endurance.
Indeed, even if they can be refueled by aerial tankers, tactical jet planes heavily rely on the JP-8 fuel loaded on the external fuel tanks. However, the auxiliary fuel tanks represent an additional weight, additional drag, and they will reduce the aircraft maneuverability.
In real combat, external fuel tanks are jettisoned when empty or as soon as the aircraft needs to get rid of them to accelerate and maneuver against an enemy fighter plane or to evade a surface to air missile.
Several thousand drop tanks were jettisoned over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
And here you can see what happened to some of those that were recovered.
Those are some MAMMOTH Drop tanks.. what aircraft would use such large Tanks? our A-7s, A-6s and Phantoms didnt use such large tanks.
centerline tanks perhaps?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/McDonnell_F-4Bs_dropping_bombs_1971.jpg
God that phantom is a sexy bitch
It appears to be much larger than even the center line tank of F-4 usage. Perhaps surplus F-105, or B-52 tanks. But I would bet they came from a storage area, and were not “dropped” having gone out into the desert around Edwards, to recover said dropped items. They were never in the condition shown, but mostly flattened scrap metal. The tank farms had lots of these tanks, and I was never sure which was for what, but they knew. I remember seeing the weapon/fuel pod for the b-58 Hustler, and it was even bigger than these. I also know that type aircraft was not used in Vietnam. But many of the tanks fit more than one type, and mostly depended on the mission, as to usage.
Those are from the B-52s.
Nope, B-52 externals were not jettison-able in flight. They’re 600 gallon F-4 centerline tanks.
B-52 tanks were jettisonable up to the G models. They always flew with the tanks installed. We didn’t drop thousands from buffs and it would be rare for the tanks to be dropped.
They look like F4 Phantom drop tanks, but the wooden bars placed in the middle make them wider than the actual tanks…
Most likely stockpile spares for F-105 “Thuds”, jettisoned tanks from aircraft crumple up on impact. These tanks appear relatively unscathed.
The one in the first photo is, quite certainly, the centerline tank of a F-4. Please note the (very) small fins in foreground, where the dark green rope is fixed. I highlighted them in red in the edited F-4B pics below.