On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 21:57:14 GMT, NOCKERS
wrote:

On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:34:50 +0100, JR wrote:

On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 17:36:14 -0500, "Tom Callahan"
wrote:

Same aircraft seen through the tree limbs. I think the aircraft is from
Oceana Naval Air Station.


FIVE fuel tanks?! Where did he came from? Japan?!
Centerline tank is a buddy pack. He is set up for refueling hence the
extra wing tanks

Tanker role
The Super Hornet, unlike the previous Hornet, can be equipped with an
aerial refueling system (ARS) for the refueling of other aircraft,
filling the tactical airborne tanker role the Navy had lost with the
retirement of the KA-6D tankers. The ARS includes an external 330
gallon tank with hose reel on the centerline along with four external
480 gallon tanks and internal tanks for a total of 29,000 pounds of
fuel on the aircraft.[

The Super Hornet has a similar fuel payload capacity to the Tomcat,
and is capable of flying the same high performance profiles as other
strike aircraft. Critics such as Bob Kress, designer of the F-14
Tomcat, point out that the wing, however, is not as efficient as the
subsonic KA-6, and that both Hornets and Super Hornets will be more
dependent on in-flight refueling than the longer range but retired
Tomcat

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/A-18E...et#Tanker_role