Is this really unexploded ordnance?

CNN.COM ^ | 10-15-01 | me

[finnman69]

I wonder if this is really unexploded ordnance or is this maybe a drop tank? Any experts care to weigh in? The scale of this picture is a little misleading with that figure in the background, but on news footage i saw this weekend this object appeared to be 8' to 10' long.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Might have been pickled if AAA opened up on them while they were rolling in on a target.

[Lady Jag]

Dakmar is right.

[poindexter]

Drop tank. No fins.

[HoweverComma]

It's the dreaded CHEMTRAIL dispenser tank, obviously emptied out of its nefarious contents.

[tutstar]

My husband is retired USMC Aviation Ordnance and said it did not look like one of ours...

[Blueflag]

Guys-- let's do some visual scaling. F-15/FA-18s are about 65 feet long, give or take an extremeity. Let's say the guy in the photo is 5.5 feet tall, and this thing is about 6 time his length. Or argue me down and say it's only 5 times his length. That would make this thing somewhere between 22 and 32 feet long. On a 65 foot aircraft?? Come on. Why would they need that large a fuel load anyway? Plus the 'rear' of this thing is 'squared'. Not at all good for airflow mgmt. Could this possibly be off of something really LARGE, like a BUFF, that needs to fly a long way, and perhaps this is only the front of it?

I am by no needs an expert, but we can all do a little more intensive photo interpretation before deciding this device is off a US fighter/attack aircraft.

This is my opinion, I welcome your flames ... 8-)

[Robert A Cook PE]

You drop the tanks when needed....before they were destroyed (and "every AA missile" can never be destroyed!) many AA rockets were fired at US planes.

To increase manuevering rates, increase up exit speeds when evading a missile, etc. the drop tanks are the first to go. Bombs too - sometimes. After all, you still have to deliver the weapons, and sometimes that means staying on the drop path while the rocket is inbound.

[Robert A Cook PE]

I'm looking at the relative scale of that thing......it looks to be over 7-8 FEET in diameter, based on the apparent image of the man behind it.

Unless the camera was using a fisheye (distorting) lens, or was shot from high overhead looking down into a valley/ditch while the man was standing below, that things is over twenty feet long!

[michigander]

[Blueflag]

Those appear to be ferry tanks on the F-16, three of them. Here's the same on an F-15

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-15-dvic227.jpg

Sorry, never have figured out the link to picture thing...

Either way, this device in the photo is bigger than either of the tanks on the 15/16.

Could be a really odd camera angle though.

[finnman69]

LOOKS LIKE A PRETTY GOOD MATCH TO ME. Even if you compare the scale of the pilot to the tank on the F-16, it seems similar in size AND has a squared end.

[finnman69]

I think the object LOOKS bigger because the picture is taken from ABOVE the man nearby which foreshortens his appearance and makes the object look bigger.

[Cliff Dweller]

Thanks, your years of flying experience (in tactical jet aircraft) is quite evident. Check six.

[RedWing9]

ABOVE the man nearby which foreshortens his appearance

Yea, I think you are right. If you look at where his hands are in relation ot his legs, his legs look like they're about a foot long. Must've been using a wide angle lens with a short aperture (I could have that backwards). When I took my amateure photog class we had to take a picture which showed how you can make objects in the background shrink or grow in relation to the foreground. I think aperture was the setting. (yes, I'm still an ameteur! :o)

[RedWing9]

Nah, he's probably just a Falcon desk jockey! LOL

[McGruff]

I think it's Bin Laden Hitlary's "Personal Pleasure Device".

[finnman69]

Maybe an old Russkie tank. I remember reading long ago that many of their aircraft weapons hardpoints were designed to accept NATO munitions. So their tanks might look like ours also. Which brings me back to another thought. Was this tank paced here by the Taliban for a photo op?

[Steve0113]

Here's a better perspective of the size of the talk: