What's hanging on this F-16?

[Enzp]

What if it collected a balloon or parachute of some kind that the cable got stuck in the wing?

[Nicolas]

Some thoughts:

• If the anomoly is attached to the airframe, it is an emergency situation as it would cause instability at all speeds.
• Bird strikes often fan out in a similar pattern but the anomoly seems too intact and too large to be a bird strike.
• Since the image seems to have preserved the trailing edge of the starboard wing including the outline of whatever is mounted on the starboard wingtip station, the anomoly is either mounted to the top of the starboard wing, is more distant that the F-16 or is an artifact.

It is almost certain that whatever the image captured is not attached. What was the date of the image?

How do you come to that conclusion? The way Stijn put it, he saw these F-16's flying over multiple times, saw something hanging on the wingtip (I'm still not sure whether it were multiple F-16's and whether more than one had the attachment), and he took a picture of the aircraft BECAUSE he saw something hanging on the wing.

The date of the image was yesterday, wednesday 7 September 2005.

Again Stijn normally isn't someone to go joking around with a fake picture. And if he would make a fake, he'd do a lot more effort than this (this one is easy to forge from a normal picture). But anyway, the way I know him and the way he asked the question, he reallly saw this F-16 flying over and took a picture of it.

[kucharek]

Could it be that it is dumping fuel? AFAIK, fuel dump valves are usually on the tip of the wing. Maybe it's nothing solid we see in the picture.

Harald

[Nicolas]

Good guess, but I seriously doubt that at 300m height or less over populated areas, while the sea is like 3 minutes away in an F-16.

Fuel dump valaves in airliners are located at the trailing edge of the wing, often at the wingtip indeed.

[Nicolas]

Problem solved!

I asked Stijn some more questions and the original images.

Result:

He saw 4 F-16's flying over multiple times. As he normally doesn't see jets there, he took a picture. On the picture (which gives a somewhat better zoom than the naked eye, but doesn't have an optional zoom lense) he saw more details of the aircraft than with the naked eye. The appendage wasn't visible with the naked eye he said. Taking a look at the original larger image revealed 2 other darker spots. Some birds most probably. The darker V around the wingtip hence is just a bird that happened to be flying before the camera the moment the picture was taken.

Because Stijn didn't see any birds at the time and could see more details on the picture anyway, he assumed it was part of the aircraft.

But 99% certain it are birds. From the original story I understood that he saw the appendage as part of the aircraft with the naked eye, but now it turns out he saw it on the picture only. He wasn't trying to mislead anyone; it was just a misunderstanding due to indirect conversation.

I'm eagerly awaiting the response of the Air Force

[Wolverine]

Because Stijn didn't see any birds at the time and could see more details on the picture anyway, he assumed it was part of the aircraft.

Precisely what I was thinking yesterday. That's partly why I'd asked to see the entire image.

[Nicolas]

It's a nice picture in full. It's not online, so I won't post it here (besides, it's not my photo).

[Wolverine]

No worries, just glad to hear the mystery solved.

[Nicolas]

Indeed it's nice to know what were the facts behind this picture. It's not like we were wondering whether they were chemtrailing us or things like that, just curious what kind of strange pod that might be.

[Nicolas]

Defence says they can't identify from that photo what item it could possibly be if it was hanging on that F-16. This supports the bird-in-front-of-the-lense theory. If they used largethings on one wingtip, they would have recognized that even from this picture.

[Ura Dumas]

I HAVE seen this sort of thing on several military aircraft.
When I lived in Pennsylvania very close to a military base. I know for a fact that this particular base was charged with testing radar systems, including ground based innovations and radar signatures for different configurations. It was not unusual to see a F-16, F-15, F-14 and even A-10's with all kind of weird schtuff attached to their wings.
It was the now closed Naval Air Development Center in Warminster, PA

[The Supreme Canuck]

Could they have been to make the planes more visible to RADAR?

[Nicolas]

I don't have any info on what radar sytems that are exactly. In case of the pictured F-16, it appear to be birds on the photo though. But, with that question solved, we can continue about the kind of radar systems you described, Ura.

[Alasdhair]

Good guess, but I seriously doubt that at 300m height or less over populated areas, while the sea is like 3 minutes away in an F-16.

Fuel dump valaves in airliners are located at the trailing edge of the wing, often at the wingtip indeed.

The fuel dump for an F-16 is at the tail

[Ura Dumas]

As I didn't work on the base, and was only privy to the seeing "odd things" when I looked up from my front yard. I am not sure what radar was being tested.

The base itself is public knowledge. A 5 second google search will pull up several results.