Dropping droptanks

[Max Richter]

Hallo,
i wonder how common is it, to really drop your droptanks in an combat
situation.
And if you do it, will somebody be upset that you lost these "valuable
peaces of equipment"?

I ask this because i was in the early eighties in the 42nd Materialdepot
of the German airforce and had to store several 600gallon F4 tanks. But
i never had to hand out one. But i think in an combat situation we would
have run out of these pretty fast.
Bye the way: next morning after storing these tanks i got my picture
with the headline " the Depot ist storing rockets" in the local
newspaper.
From outside of the fence you could see the fins of the tanks through
the wooden frames of their containers.
This was in a time where there were protest aginst nuclearweapons
(Pershings and so on) in Europe.
The local politics ran wild and we found it really funny. So far for
good journalism.

Greetings Max

[Phormer Phighter Phlyer]

Max Richter wrote:
> Hallo,
> i wonder how common is it, to really drop your droptanks in an combat
> situation.
> And if you do it, will somebody be upset that you lost these "valuable
> peaces of equipment"?
>
> I ask this because i was in the early eighties in the 42nd Materialdepot
> of the German airforce and had to store several 600gallon F4 tanks. But
> i never had to hand out one. But i think in an combat situation we would
> have run out of these pretty fast.
> Bye the way: next morning after storing these tanks i got my picture
> with the headline " the Depot ist storing rockets" in the local
> newspaper.
> From outside of the fence you could see the fins of the tanks through
> the wooden frames of their containers.
> This was in a time where there were protest aginst nuclearweapons
> (Pershings and so on) in Europe.
> The local politics ran wild and we found it really funny. So far for
> good journalism.
>
> Greetings Max
>
>

In the USN, we generally didnot plan on dropping tanks in the F-4 or the
F-14..do that a few days and you will be out of tanks. A F-4 w/o a CL
has some pretty short legs and cannot make a 1 and 45 cycle...


For the USAF tho(I had an exchange tour in the F-4D, 61st TFS), we
trained and talked about getting rid of the things all the time but
'back home' there was a warehouse full of tanks.

[Mike Kanze]

Max,

Further to "Phormer's" comments, in the USN the supply train to a deployed
carrier is bit more tenuous than that to a fixed USAF land base.
Replenishment assets are more useful when slinging beans, bombs, mail, and
movies to the carrier than high cube drop tanks.

However, back when carriers had a SIOP mission, drop tanks were definitely
expendable when installed on those assets (A-6s in my day) tasked with such
work.

--
Mike Kanze

"All men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for
example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is a vegetable. We have no idea
what mauve is."

- Rules From Guys


"Phormer Phighter Phlyer" > wrote in message
news:1112451136.d280a24e6684e201f6f44e9f90d6c4bc@t eranews...
> Max Richter wrote:
>> Hallo,
>> i wonder how common is it, to really drop your droptanks in an combat
>> situation.
>> And if you do it, will somebody be upset that you lost these "valuable
>> peaces of equipment"?
>>
>> I ask this because i was in the early eighties in the 42nd Materialdepot
>> of the German airforce and had to store several 600gallon F4 tanks. But
>> i never had to hand out one. But i think in an combat situation we would
>> have run out of these pretty fast.
>> Bye the way: next morning after storing these tanks i got my picture
>> with the headline " the Depot ist storing rockets" in the local
>> newspaper.
>> From outside of the fence you could see the fins of the tanks through
>> the wooden frames of their containers.
>> This was in a time where there were protest aginst nuclearweapons
>> (Pershings and so on) in Europe.
>> The local politics ran wild and we found it really funny. So far for
>> good journalism.
>>
>> Greetings Max
>>
>>
>
> In the USN, we generally didnot plan on dropping tanks in the F-4 or the
> F-14..do that a few days and you will be out of tanks. A F-4 w/o a CL has
> some pretty short legs and cannot make a 1 and 45 cycle...
>
>
> For the USAF tho(I had an exchange tour in the F-4D, 61st TFS), we trained
> and talked about getting rid of the things all the time but 'back home'
> there was a warehouse full of tanks.

[Ed Rasimus]

On Sat, 02 Apr 2005 14:31:29 +0200, Max Richter
> wrote:

>Hallo,
>i wonder how common is it, to really drop your droptanks in an combat
>situation.
>And if you do it, will somebody be upset that you lost these "valuable
>peaces of equipment"?
>

In the USAF F-4 operations in SEA during Linebacker we jettisoned the
C/L tank on virtually all missions into Route Pack VI.

Aircraft doing MiGCAP, escort and Hunter/Killer missions were usually
configured with C/L tanks, inboard ordinance (CBU for H/K and AIM-9s
for A/A sorties) and outboard tanks. The C/L always was dumped when
empty.

We seldom jettisoned the outboard tanks, however on long duration
Hunter/Killer missions when we had to spend 45 minutes in the target
area supporting the bomb-droppers, we would also dump the 370 O/B
tanks.

The F-105G Weasels always jettisoned the C/L during Route Pack VI
missions and the lead Weasel who had an assymetric load of AGM-78
Standard ARM on one inboard station would also jettison the lone 450
after firing the Standard.

Single-seat F-105D operations during Rolling Thunder usually retained
the tanks except in emergency situations or MiG engagements. But, I
still got to blow a few of those as well.

I recount the tale in "When Thunder Rolled" of screwing up on my third
F-105 combat mission and inadvertently jettisoning the C/L tank and
inboard "special weapons" pylons in the target area. When I landed the
maintenance supervisor handed me a clipboard with a "hand receipt" for
the two pylons and the tank--$6000 for the pylons and $800 for the
tank. I thought they were going to bill me, but it was strictly a
records keeping exercise.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com

[W. D. Allen Sr.]

SIOP missions generally required a full fuel load with all possible drop
tanks on board. To complete the nuc delivery mission meant all drops were
salvoed when emptied. Even then we doubted if our aircraft carrier would be
there when and if we made it back. Incidentally, the VA jets had about a
four hour 650 mile mission while the Spads (VA prop) had up to 24 hour
missions.

In WW II the Air Force got around to using expendable PAPER drop tanks.

end

"Mike Kanze" > wrote in message
...
> Max,
>
> Further to "Phormer's" comments, in the USN the supply train to a deployed
> carrier is bit more tenuous than that to a fixed USAF land base.
> Replenishment assets are more useful when slinging beans, bombs, mail, and
> movies to the carrier than high cube drop tanks.
>
> However, back when carriers had a SIOP mission, drop tanks were definitely
> expendable when installed on those assets (A-6s in my day) tasked with
> such work.
>
> --
> Mike Kanze
>
> "All men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for
> example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is a vegetable. We have no idea
> what mauve is."
>
> - Rules From Guys
>
>
> "Phormer Phighter Phlyer" > wrote in message
> news:1112451136.d280a24e6684e201f6f44e9f90d6c4bc@t eranews...
>> Max Richter wrote:
>>> Hallo,
>>> i wonder how common is it, to really drop your droptanks in an combat
>>> situation.
>>> And if you do it, will somebody be upset that you lost these "valuable
>>> peaces of equipment"?
>>>
>>> I ask this because i was in the early eighties in the 42nd Materialdepot
>>> of the German airforce and had to store several 600gallon F4 tanks. But
>>> i never had to hand out one. But i think in an combat situation we would
>>> have run out of these pretty fast.
>>> Bye the way: next morning after storing these tanks i got my picture
>>> with the headline " the Depot ist storing rockets" in the local
>>> newspaper.
>>> From outside of the fence you could see the fins of the tanks through
>>> the wooden frames of their containers.
>>> This was in a time where there were protest aginst nuclearweapons
>>> (Pershings and so on) in Europe.
>>> The local politics ran wild and we found it really funny. So far for
>>> good journalism.
>>>
>>> Greetings Max
>>>
>>>
>>
>> In the USN, we generally didnot plan on dropping tanks in the F-4 or the
>> F-14..do that a few days and you will be out of tanks. A F-4 w/o a CL has
>> some pretty short legs and cannot make a 1 and 45 cycle...
>>
>>
>> For the USAF tho(I had an exchange tour in the F-4D, 61st TFS), we
>> trained and talked about getting rid of the things all the time but 'back
>> home' there was a warehouse full of tanks.
>
>

[Bob]

Agree USN fighters would soon run out of tanks if they dropped them on
every hop but, since we're talking F-4 and Vietnam, let me point out
there were very few ocassions where we had F-4/Mig encounters. If
tanks were dropped after a talley on Migs, nobody would have been
upset. We had some F-4 guys actually take on Migs and forget to drop
their tanks. It was always considered a Delta Sierra in the ready room
after action discussions. If Migs were encountered every day our F-4's
would soon be out of tanks as not that many were carried aboard the
boat but, an AK loaded with tanks could get to us on Yankee Station
from Cubi in about two days if they were red flagged. And 1+45 cycles
would be changed to 1+30 or whatever it took. Mig action daily would
probably have most F-4 boats shifting fron cyclic to Alpha mode anyway
with clear decks after launch until the strike returned. Clean F-4's
could make a 1+30 cycle if no ACM. Airborn fuel would be mandatory in
any case. Any F-4 boat with no airborn fuel was an emergency. Nearby
F-8 boats would likely send tankers to cover if that happened. The old
KA-3s were great, later EA-3's not so great but adequate.

One last thought on dropping F-4 tanks, usually not a big problem
separation-wise when the tank was full but if you pickled off an empty
centerline, you'd best be pulling a few G's or it might just bite you
in the ass. Or worse yet, the stabilator.