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.
They had the Story wrong these don’t look to be dropped…
I’ve had a similar Question when it comes to Torpedoes specially in WW1 & WW2, Most Torpedoes Miss, how far do they run, they don’t self destruct, Would they explode when they hit bottom &/or do we have 10’s of thousands Old Live Torpedoes all over our Ocean floors???
Phantoms Forever!
make a pretty nice boat,,glad we could help,sorta.kinda,,and besides aluminum doesn’t rot out like wood.and they are lighter which means you can carry more stuff with a smaller engine.
The discarded aviation fuel tanks makes for pretty good river boats.