Drop Tank Would Not Drop

[DieHard]

I was on a server that had random failures turned on.

 

I had a pair of drop tanks. I jettisoned both, one dropped OK, the other remained. I could not get it to release, so I attempted a dogfight with it on, anyway. Eventually had to rtb and land with the remaining drop tank attached.

 

Is there a solution to getting rid of the hung tank?

 

This same sortie, my gear and flaps would not drop for landing. So I used the emergency standby systems to deploy the gear and flaps in flight and they both worked great.

[DieHard]

I take it there is no solution to this issue?

[cofcorpse]

You had jammed rack because of random failures. There is now other way to drop fuel tank

[NineLine]

I know there are stories of this being a common issue on the F-86 in Korea.

 

http://acepilots.com/korea_jabara.html

 

Captain Jabara punched out his tanks but only the left one dropped away. The right tank held fast. Disregarding orders and his Sabre's impaired capabilities, he engaged the MiGs in a head-on pass without any hits. As turned to pursue, his wingman called out three more MiGs behind him. Turning as tightly as the Sabre and his consciousness would allow, he got behind a MiG and started a turning duel. At 25,000 feet he found the range, opened up, and ripped into the MiG fuselage and left wing with a deadly hail of .50 caliber fire from his six Brownings.

 

The MiG-15 flamed, snap rolled, and dived down; Jabara watched in fascination. About halfway down, the Communist pilot bailed out a few seconds before his plane exploded. Anxious to confirm his kill, Jabara also dived down low enough to photograph the descending pilot with his gun camera.

 

Above, the battle raged - as 50 MiGs swarmed around 28 Sabres. As he roared back up to altitude, he lost track of his wingman, but soon found six MiGs. He latched onto the tail of the trailing aircraft. Despite violently evasive maneuvers, the MiG pilot couldn't shake Jabara, who fired two bursts. One went high, but the other caught him in the fuselage. The plane began to pour smoke and lose altitude. As Jabara followed his second victim down to 6,000 feet where the Soviet plane broke up. Suddenly the other MiGs turned the tables and began firing at Jabara. Again the hung tanks impaired his Sabre's flying ability, and the MiGs closed in. As their gunfire hit home, it sounded to Jabara like a popcorn machine running right next to him in the cockpit. His wingman, having his own problems, couldn't clear his tail. Jabara dodged and twisted his sluggish F-86.

 

From above, two F-86s spotted Jabara's single F-86, obviously in serious trouble. After a brief radio call, the two Americans cleared the MiGs from his tail, and the three headed back to base at K-13. Now credited with six kills, he was the first jet-vs.-jet ace in history (the German Me-262 jet aces had scored on prop-driven planes). Col. John Meyer, CO 4th FIW, awarded him a DFC and promptly chewed him out for getting into combat with a hung tank.

[DieHard]

Thanks for the reply.

 

Yeah, re: Message #4, usually hell to pay for disobeying orders, no gettin' around that.

Edited May 11, 2015 by DieHard

[Chimango]

I know there are stories of this being a common issue on the F-86 in Korea.

 

http://acepilots.com/korea_jabara.html

 

[...]Now credited with six kills, he was the first jet-vs.-jet ace in history[...]

 

Jabara wasn´t the first Ace above Korea, he probably finished 1951 with only 4 kills. The first KTO ace was a VVS pilot.

 

Quote from Diego Zampini -historian and KTO expert- on that same link provided at message #4, :

 

The release of Soviet records in the 1990's has permitted us to get a look at the other side of American claims. I received the following e-mail from Sr. Diego Zampini, an Argentine expert on the Korean Air War:

 

It is highly likely that Captain James Jabara did NOT become the first Korean War ace and the "First jet-vs-jet ace" on 20 May 1951. According to an article written by two Russian historians, Leonid Krylov and Yuri Tepsurkayev, Three out of One Thousand, only four of his victims to that date could be confirmed.

All three MiG kills claimed by USAF Sabres on 3 April 1951 were confirmed by Russian sources (So, Jabara’s first kill is fully confirmed).

 

But there were no Soviet losses on 10 April, the date of Jabara’s second official kill, and no Chinese MiGs were in the air. Regarding 12 April 1951, during the huge battle between B-29s and their escort fighters against the MiGs of Antung, only one MiG was lost, against the four claimed by Sabre pilots. So, only one is confirmed, and it is not sure that Jabara scored that kill. The same happened on 22 April, the date of Jabara’s fourth official kill, only one MiG out of four claimed was actually downed, and again it is not sure that Jabara scored that kill. Even if the single MiG losses on 12 and 22 April were scored by Jabara, his tally on 22 April wouldn’t have been four, but three enemy aircraft downed.

 

Regarding 20 May 1951 his first kill of the day is fully confirmed. His victim was Captain Nazarkin (196 IAP, 324 IAD). His second combatant escaped, seriously damaged, but he escaped. So his score by the end of 1951 was only four. Additionally, the MiG-15 pilot who attacked Jabara was Sr. Lt. V.N. Alfeyev (196 IAP, 324 IAD) who also reached ace status, with 7 kills - including Jabara. Evidently the US pilot left the aerial battlefield so damaged that Alfeyev sincerely thought that he shot him down.

 

There is no doubt that Jabara became a high-scoring ace in his second tour in 1953, nor that he was an outstanding fighter pilot, but unfortunately he wasn’t the first Korean War ace nor the "First jet-vs-jet ace." Check out the article Three out of One Thousand, in the http://www.korean-war.com site.

Edited May 12, 2015 by Chimango

[NineLine]

Really it was about hung tanks, I wasnt concerned with anything else in the story :)