Friday, October 23, 2020

A Look At The F-22s Wing Tank Storage Facility

 


Very few things are simple in the fighter aircraft business, including storing and moving around giant external fuel tanks. 

F-22A Raptor is still as much of a modern marvel as it was when it entered service a decade and a half ago, but nothing about the world's first 5th generation stealth super-fighter, or really any modern fighter aircraft for that matter, is simple or cheap. 

Case in point, the place where the Raptor's 600-gallon external fuel tanks are stored at Langely AFB in Virginia, one of the USAF's biggest Raptor nests. 

Dubbed the Vertical Tank Storage System (VTSS), the indoor installation is like one of those dry cleaning conveyor racks, but it holds massive external fuel tanks, not shirts and sport coats. It was just featured in a number of cool photos from the 1st Fighter Wing's public affairs folks.

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WNU Editor: Tried to find out how much each fuel tank costs. No luck. But I would not be surprised if these tanks cost north of $100,000.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whenever such videos are posted, the Chinese army has a bunch of analysts going over it, trying to copy whatever is possible. Not sure I have a solution for it, and I know everyone must know this by now, but it's still very suboptimal

Anonymous said...

The video says for F15's? And when a stealth fighter has external tanks/weapons; its way less stealthy...