Friday 2009-12-04 Screenshots Update discussion thread

[ECV56_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Lucas_From_Hell

Would be interesting to see this modeled fully - including possibility of it not exploding. Will be nice to use as napalm

I don't think that a fully loaded droptank would explode when it hits the ground. Assuming the droptank brakes because of the impact, you would have fuel scattered all over the place, but it wouldn't explode. Fuel in order to explode needs to be in the estequiometric proportion with oxygen.
In any case, if there is something the ignite the fuel, you could probably get a fire for quite some time until all the fuel is consumed, but not an explosion.
A half or less loaded fuel tank would be diferent, since in that case you do have a good mix of fuel and oxygen in gaseous state inside the tank itself, and that can cause and explosion.
So it is for what i know and remember, but i could be wrong.

[Skarphol]

I would be surpriced if a droptank eksploded on impact. There will allways be an ignitable amount of fuelvapour inside, but would impact onto ground really create the nessesary sparks to ignite it? And wasn't most droptanks made out of compressed paper? Or was that just the american ones, thus not relevant in BoB?

I've never read about fires started from falling droptanks. On the other hand, you seldom read about injuries to people on the ground from bullets fired between planes neither, even though there must have been falling down quite a lot of lead over southern Brittain during the BoB.

Skarphol

[furbs]

???...are people really asking for exploding drop tanks? ...good grief

[ECV56_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by furbs

???...are people really asking for exploding drop tanks? ...good grief

Why so surprise? Everybody here see movies, and in movies drop tanks explodes, so it must be true and want to see the same thing on this sim, since its "realistic"