SU-25 loadout question: Wingtanks on outer stations.

[MR_BURNS2]

Hullo,

 

Couldn't think of a better place to ask this question, so here it goes:

 

On many Su-25 pictures made during the Soviet-Afghan war you can see the wingtanks on the outer stations as opposed to the more usual inboard stations,

 

Examples:

 

 

 

Why could that be? Any ideas?

 

Another oddity i learned about somewhere is that they like to keep a space between S-24´s and wingtanks to keep the fiery end of the launching rocket away from the fuel, which sounds sensible enough, but doesn't explain the above mentioned oddity since you can mount S-24´s on no less then 8 stations AFAIK.

[Retu81]

It could be something to do with maneuverability. With fuel tanks on the outer pylons, the plane's roll inertia will be lower as more and more fuel is burned off the external tanks. As opposed to a bomb that will have to be dropped in order to gain the same advantage.

[MR_BURNS2]

Yeah i was thinking about that too, it makes sense, yet they stopped that practice later.

 

It just occurred to me that the tanks shield the engines a bit better from certain angles, thus marginally decreasing the IR signature, but that's perhaps a long shot.