God Bless USA
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The Israeli Air Force (IAF) bought the F-16I with conformal fuel tanks. Why hasn't the USA used the conformal fuel tanks on there F-16's? Also can conformal fuel tanks be used on other fighter aircraft?
Conformal fuel tanks (CFTs)
- Thread starter God Bless USA
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CFTs need internal rewiring, plumbing and structural modification to be supported on an aircraft.
The US F-16 fleet simply does not have this, only a few dozen of the USAF F-16s are Block 52 anyway (equivalent Block to those export aircraft that received plumbing for CFTs).
The US F-16 fleet simply does not have this, only a few dozen of the USAF F-16s are Block 52 anyway (equivalent Block to those export aircraft that received plumbing for CFTs).
Conformal tanks cannot be jettisoned this is their biggest disadvantage. They give less drag than a normal fuel tank but they still give increased drag compared to a clean aircraft that has jettisoned its under wing tanks.
The USAF has enough tanker assets to not worry and have obviously decided that the extra speed is more valuable. The only countries that have conformal tanks on their F-16's use them in the long range strike role and often have very limited tanker assets.
God Bless USA
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Is there any current fighter aircraft other than the F-16I that has the conformal fuel tanks? If so where can see photos of it.
sierrahotel
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The first aircraft with CFT is the F-15 (Known as FAST pack: Fuel And Sensor Tactical).The tanks are fitted below the fuselage alongside the engine insertions and can be seen in any F-15 photo.CFTs are tested for use with Eurofighter,Rafale and Gripen.
The F-15E is the only other operational aircraft i can think of.
The F-15E is an example of turning a medium weight fighter into a heavy weight strike fighter. Extra fuel allowed the lighter to F-15 to replace many of the roles performed by the retired F-111. Even with the decreased agility and acceleration created by such tanks it would still be greater than the F-111.
Conformal tanks on the F-16 is an example of turning a light weight fighter into a medium weight strike fighter. Countries like the the US can simply buy a strike fighter in the first place.
Studies of conformal tanks for the Rafale and Eurofighter are currently being done as far as i know. Again these tanks will be used to turning the aircraft from a short ranged fighter to a medium ranged strike fighter.
weasel1962
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God Bless USA
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I've read the F-18 Hornet A/B and C/D did not carry alot of fuel internally. Would the conformal fuel tanks help this aircraft have greater range? How about the E/F model which has greater range wouldn't it have helped it also?
weasel1962
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weasel1962
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I DID read it very carefully, several times in fact, hence my confusion!
Anyway, there are not a lot of options for the placement of CFTs on a Hornet due to it have a relatively flat upper fuselage and the airflow characteristics over the LEX, and the already narrow clearance margins between the air intakes and wing stations 3 and 7.
weasel1962
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It seems to me that CFT's for the Hornet series would be desirable when it is in the tanker role, the more fuel it can carry the better.
weasel1962
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Ozzy Blizzard
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IIRC the MiG 29M used a single CFT along the spine of the aircraft behind the cockpit. Perhaps this is the best place on the hornet familly?
As for ejectable CFT's, AFAIK the F-16's CFT's only incur 11% of the drag penalty the under wing tanks do. Thats almost negledgable, so i dont know if it would really be worth it.
dragonfire
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Would the CFTs on the Block 50/52/60 F-16 increase the size of its RCS. It looks from pics that the CFTs give a different silhouetee to the aircraft with CFTs adding additional physical dimensions behind the cockpit. But perhaps the designers intended minimal radar reflection considering how important LO features are for the Americans. Inputs anyone
Thanks in advance
Thanks in advance
This is conjecture but I would think they'd increase the RCS at the angles at which they're visible, yes. Just going by the additional bulky surfaces and so forth - if pylon carried payloads increase RCS I don't see why the CFTs wouldn't.
That said, certain F-16s have had RCS-reducing measures performed on them under the programs "Have Glass" and "Have Glass II", though it can be a bit difficult to find information on these things obviously. A bit of googling around should give you some info on the RCS reduction measures.
Whether or not such measures included some kind of allowances for reducing CFT RCS I'm not sure. I've seen pictures of a Blk 60 with the L-M Skunkworks logo on its CFTs and they'd certainly know a thing or two about LO, but I think that had more to do with configuring the CFTs with a refuelling probe than it did RCS reductions. Still, you never know.
So whether or not an aircraft with the Have Glass modifications and the CFTs ends up with a larger or smaller RCS compared to a standard Blk 52 I have no idea, but I hope the information helps anyway.
Just an uninformed guess here but a CFT will not have the right angle traps where a pylon is hanging from a wing as such you'd think a CFT would make a lower addition to the radar signature than drop tanks. Having said that we are talking about an aircraft that already has a fairly large signature (guesswork here) compared to the 5th gen airframes is this a pretty pointless argument?