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Originally Posted by Anaraxes
Does T5 go into detail as to exactly when and how the fuel in the jump tanks gets used?
Clearing drop tanks would be pretty easy. They effectively have the same acceleration as the ship, because the ship can just turn them loose and then decelerate. If you have to jump from a dead stop (relative to what?), then it's still not an issue, as you can just add a vector, release, then decelerate.
So the question isn't where the tanks are, but where the fuel is. If it's LBB style, so all that fuel gets turned into energy stored in jump capacitors, then you can easily empty the tanks and clear them before you jump.
If it's the later style, where fuel is continually bleeding out over a week to form a shield in jumpspace, then you can't drop the tanks at all. They'll have to be inside the jump field to be taken along, effectively part of the volume of the ship, as they're not empty until you reach your destination.
You could take out the notion of capacitors, and say that all that fuel gets burned at once to enter into jumpspace, but that happens immediately, so there's no time to clear your drop tanks. (Such ship designs wouldn't include the tanks in the lump field, so most of them don't come along, which automatically damages the tanks. Proper design would keep that damage minor, though, maybe just a couple of struts with pipes that are intended to be replaced. If a jump field has a reasonably sharp and predictable boundary, that is.) This style implies a huge surge capacity in your power plant output, though.
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The prior canon is that jump fuel is used in under 20 minutes, and is spent whether or not the jump happens; you don't have time to drain empty and eject, as you finish using it as you enter jumpspace.
I don't have time at the moment to dig the T5 answer out accurately, but...
IIRC, the JDrive is actually an overdrive on the PP, coupled to the astrogation and initiator; the fuel has to be fed steady rate, and once started, there's no delay.