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What is the lump underneath the English Electric Lightning's fuselage?

enter image description here

Source: www.forwallpaper.com

Simon
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anonymous
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    Questions on SE normally expect a bit of research ahead of time. This was obviously not done in this case. If you mouse over the down vote button, you will read the following text: "this question does not show any research effort." It took me less than 45 seconds to find the obvious answer. – KorvinStarmast Oct 05 '16 at 19:52
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    @KorvinStarmast I understand your point, but so far the consensus on this site is that we answer questions, we don't tell people to RTFM or JFGI. Just because you can find an answer quickly doesn't mean someone else can, or that the answer is exactly what they're looking for anyway. – Pondlife Oct 05 '16 at 20:09
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    @KorvinStarmast This site is generally speaking supposed to be beginner friendly, I'm actually pretty surprised by all the downvotes. I'm with Pondlife though, just because it's easy for one person to google doesn't mean it will be for another. I've struggled on google searches that should have been obvious before and just settled on asking a question... It happens, even to the best of us. There's no reason we can't just answer the question here. – Jae Carr Oct 05 '16 at 20:15
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    @JayCarr OK, I'll drop the grumpy old man act. DV rescinded. – KorvinStarmast Oct 05 '16 at 20:17
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    Stack Exchange is different to any other site. I encourage you to have a look around the help centre. Learning how to ask good questions is part of learning how to learn - if that makes sense! I've also opened a meta-discussion question on this topic which you might want to follow. I hope that this site becomes a great source of information with you but, I would leave you with the thought that the quality of what you get out is determined by the quality you put in. – Simon Oct 05 '16 at 20:17
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    @KorvinStarmast Thanks much good sir! I know you have some long experience, us n00bs can probably get pretty annoying at times. I appreciate your patience :) – Jae Carr Oct 05 '16 at 20:18
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    Hey, anonymous, some of your questions may actually work a bit better in chat, perhaps you would like to join us there? http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/12036/the-hangar – Jae Carr Oct 05 '16 at 20:39

1 Answers1

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The lump is a ventral fuel tank, aka conformal fuel tank.

The F.3A introduced [...] a new, non-jettisonable, 610-imperial-gallon (2,800 L) ventral fuel tank.—Wikipedia

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    Kind of funny how just looking up the Wikipedia article on something gives a decent explanation...Not to mention that History.SE actually has a Close reason of "Easily found on Wikipedia". – SMS von der Tann Oct 05 '16 at 19:52
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    @SMSvonderTann We're not History.SE, nor are we a site that covers a topic that is heavily centered on text based research. I thought the consensus had been that we are beginner friendly and answer all question (that are well formed) even if they are simple. When did this change? – Jae Carr Oct 05 '16 at 20:17
  • @JayCarr I was just saying, since the speed with which this question was answered using just the Wiki article. – SMS von der Tann Oct 05 '16 at 20:18
  • @SMSvonderTann As I said in the comments on the question, just because it is simple for one person doesn't mean it will be that simple for another. We have no idea why the OP wasn't able to find the answer on their own, perhaps they are young, perhaps they're google-fu was off today, who knows. I just feel we should give people the benefit of the doubt. That's all I'm saying. – Jae Carr Oct 05 '16 at 20:20
  • @SMSvonderTann: "Easiness" to find answers is relative... this question for CX-HLS RFP could also be answered by searching online, the first page results contain this link. That's not a criticism, just that something can be easy for one person and not for the other, as already explained by JayCarr :-) – mins Oct 06 '16 at 09:59