Forum: Modern Military Aircraft

I have some very general questions for anyone who might know the answers. I'm sure all this has be discussed previously, but I'm too lazy to comb through all the threads.

1. When was the last time any US fighter "punched tanks" in combat?

2. What is considered and acceptable reason for dropping the tanks nowadays?

3. Are modern external tanks ever hard-mounted?

4. On the F-35, can the rails be dropped with the tanks/external munitions?

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#3. The F-16's 600 gallon wing tanks (used by Israel and maybe others) are fixed and cannot be punched (not sure if they can as an emergency measure).

#4. Yes

Quote:

I have some very general questions for anyone who might know the answers. I'm sure all this has be discussed previously, but I'm too lazy to comb through all the threads.

1. When was the last time any US fighter "punched tanks" in combat?

Reading from the book F-15 Engaged, In dersert storm, F-15C during the first week did several DT drops.

SpudmanWP wrote:

#3. The F-16's 600 gallon wing tanks (used by Israel and maybe others) are fixed and cannot be punched (not sure if they can as an emergency measure).

One would think the 600 would be just as jettison-able as the 370 in an emergency stores jett. If ya gotta get rid of it, ya gotta get rid of it. Not sure why'd they'd prevent ya from sel jetting the thing like ya can with the 370 unless there's an impact or an abrupt asymmetry issue.

Quickly using my Google-Fu, I came up with a couple of sources on the Israeli 600-gallon tanks which are "non-jetissonable"

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... /f-16i.htm
http://defense-update.com/products/f/f-16-fuel.htm

Some members of Package Q over Iraq in 1991 had to jettison tanks. It could well be on You Tube or LiveLeak, pretty sure it used to be anyway.

And I seem to remember soee locals in the more recent Iraq war crowing over the wreckage of supposedly downed aircraft that were not aircraft at all but fuel tanks that had been ditched. The Bosnian thing rings a bell too about locals crowing over fuel tank wreckage. Interesting topic btw.

The 370s are hard mounted to their pylon, which is jettisonable, as we know. The 600s are mounted on a standard weapon pylon with fuel and air piping added. The tank could be jettisoned if cartridges were installed. There are several reasons not to jettison the tanks at speed. The 600s are not compartmented, as the 370s are, so there is an unknown tank CG to contend with. The pylon mount provides no way to control tank pitch during jettison, recalling the 370 pylon is pivoted at its aft end to assure correct pitch down. During development, the 600s were primarily for ferry, so jettison was not cleared.

The 600s were jettisoned from the larger Japanese F-2 during the test program, but I do not know if they were cleared for service jettison.

If I were in the cockpit, I really would like to have emergency jettison up to 200 kt.

I've also got a couple of general questions that I just figured I'd throw in here, if anyone knows...

5. What would be a typical external tank configuration to achieve maximum combat radius on an F-15E? On an F-16? Would they be trying to pack on as much fuel as possible?

6. Will the F-35 often carry external tanks or other external stores during training or ferry flights? What about in a bomb truck scenario such as in Iraq/Afghanistan?

7. What does "Mach 1.6" mean to the F-35? Is it a limit, a requirement, or maximum speed? Anyone have any details on when AF-1 reached this speed? All I've heard is a statement that it did. Was it in straight and level flight, was it a struggle, etc.?

I appreciate anyone's charity in advance who decides to spare their time.

AFAIK it is a placard limit only and would have no more difficulty in getting there then a clean F-16 blk 50 would.

pilotbrah wrote:

7. What does "Mach 1.6" mean to the F-35? Is it a limit, a requirement, or maximum speed? Anyone have any details on when AF-1 reached this speed? All I've heard is a statement that it did. Was it in straight and level flight, was it a struggle, etc.?

I appreciate anyone's charity in advance who decides to spare their time.

M1.6 is the KPP for max combat speed in all 3 models(i.e it will be able to reach this speed with a full internal weapon load). The F-35 will be tested beyond M1.6 as well. It's not as glamorous sound as M2+, but when one considers that the fastest an F-15 has flown in combat is ~M1.4, it's not too shabby. Good luck getting an F-16 or F-18 to M1.6, with 5000lbs of weapons. Even competitors/foes will have a hard time going much faster, when carrying combat loads.

Do you guys think it likely for more specific details to be released in the event that the F-35 is able to sustain a higher speed than expected? Would such a higher sustained speed be officially "approved", so to speak?

pilotbrah wrote:

Do you guys think it likely for more specific details to be released in the event that the F-35 is able to sustain a higher speed than expected? Would such a higher sustained speed be officially "approved", so to speak?

Well when the F-22 was coming out, it was listed as supercruising at M1.5, but since that time, the figure has gone up. I don't think it'll be a closely guarded secret if the F-35 can actually do M1.8+, rather than just M1.6.

wrightwing wrote:

pilotbrah wrote:

Do you guys think it likely for more specific details to be released in the event that the F-35 is able to sustain a higher speed than expected? Would such a higher sustained speed be officially "approved", so to speak?

Well when the F-22 was coming out, it was listed as supercruising at M1.5, but since that time, the figure has gone up. I don't think it'll be a closely guarded secret if the F-35 can actually do M1.8+, rather than just M1.6.

F-35 will be tested past mach 1.6. Mach 1.6 is not it's top speed. Just the max speed they build it to go.

Quote:

Though the F-35's maximum speed is Mach 1.6, the F-35 test program will eventually push the jet a little beyond that limit to make sure operational pilots have a margin of safety, Griffiths said.

Read it here.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6792072 [/quote]

I'm pretty sure wrightwing is correct in the sense that Mach 1.6 won't be the top speed of the F-35. Mach 1.6 was just the speed it was tested at going several years ago. The F-35 should be able to go much faster than that with little difficulty thanks to that massive engine and lack of large external tanks.

That's my point. The F-35 is designed to have a combat speed of M1.6, not just a theoretical speed of M1.6. The top speed is M1.6+(and the question is how big that + is).

Forum: Modern Military Aircraft

External Tanks