Why did early korean war jets carry big bulbous tanks on the tips of their wings (like the F2H banshee or F84 thunderjet)? How do modern jets manage with higher performance engines?

Question

Like, why not carry them slung under the wings like bombs? Fire bomb tanks have similar shapes and those were slung under the wings.

And from what I’ve seen of public modern fighter jets, they carry their drop tanks under their wings like a bomb.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Some of them turned out to fly better with wingtip tanks in place, the tanks acted sort of similar to the winglets you see on modern airliners to reduce wingtip vortices. So if you’re going to put a big tank somewhere, might as well put it where it is aerodynamically beneficial. Some modern fighter jets mount missiles there for the same reason.

Also, this might seem counterintuitive, but mounting a heavy weight at the wingtips could reduce the stress on wingspars. The wings lift the whole weight of the fuselage, so if you add heavy tanks closer to the centerline that puts additional bending moment on the wings. Putting the heavy tanks near or at the wingtips helps distribute the load and reduce wing bending moment.