The F-111, the Tornado, and the Buccaneer were all in top form and in the perfect environment for very high speed, extremely low level attack missions, day or night, in any weather.
Loved working on the F-111E in the mid '70's. Was a crew chief at Upper Heyford. Always liked night launches and watching the burners go from yellow/red to a bright blue/white. Very nice video. Thank you!
Rickey, I am the son of a 111 crew chief Greg Weigl. I was born in Oxford while both parents (AD Air Force) were stationed at Upper Heyford. have memories of Cannon AFB growing up and Dad spent the twilight of his career with EF-Ravens and was nearly killed at Khobar Towers. Good to meet you and God Bless...nothing like an Aardvark Crew Chief.
Hi Rickey. I worked as an instrument \ autopilot tech on the F111D at Cannon AFB in the early 70s. My favorite thing was to work with the crew chief who sort of owned the airplane I was sent to fix. They were usually great help because they knew the particulars of their airplane and could help you operate the hydraulic and electrical systems. That situation changed before I left in 1974 where the crew chiefs were no longer assigned to a particular plane. I would have go on the job with another tech from my shop because you nearly always needed two people. It was better if the other person was the owner.
Best airplane ever. The 111's and the F-117 were the only aircraft that were allowed to bomb downtown Bagdad during Desert Storm, because of their speed and jamming gear and heavy bomb load capability, and because of their stealth. All 111's carry jamming gear, not just the EF-111's, which carries much more but no bombs.
@@thodorisvlastos6304 The F-15E, is really a all-weather multirole strike fighter derived from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. The only time it becomes an electronic warfare aircraft, is when it's carrying the externally mounted ALQ-131 ECM pod which is carried on the centerline pylon when required. It's not a real jamming aircraft, such as the late F-111EF Raven or the EA-18G Prowler, which carries jamming gear to protect other aircraft flying to their mission. During Vietnam, all F111-A's, C and D models, carried a right seat WSO, carried jammers, radar track breaking pods, flares, chaff, and IR missile detection systems. Only the Jamming pods were externally mounted. It was a huge aircraft and on the deck, no aircraft could keep up with it. They flew over 6,500 mission in Vietnam, and lost 6 aircraft. 2 were do to the right engine catching fire, 2 were when they slammed into mountains from TFR failure, and the other two, we never found out. F111's were also the first aircraft to use Smart Bombs in Vietnam, like we saw in the first Gulf War.
@@thodorisvlastos6304 Some F15E will carry a jamming pod, but because of it's long range radar and fighter capabilities, it's used more as a Dog Fighter/Strike aircraft, than as an EW aircraft, such as the Navy's EA-6B Prowler, which also carries the same Dome antenna on top of the vertical stabilizer that the EF-111 Raven carried. On the deck and at night, not even the F15 could stay with the F-111, which is how an EF-111 killed a Mirage during Desert Storm, as it could fly at 960 knots on the deck. The F-15E's main goal is to rule the skies and fly cap for the slower bomb-laden aircraft on the way to their target. Check out the video about the F-111. th-cam.com/video/jAyMklJSwi8/w-d-xo.html
Yes, many F-16C's and F-4G's with F-15C top cover also went 'Downtown' during Desert Storm, but not in the beginning. After the F117's & F-111's, with ECM jamming by the EF-111's had taken out the Iraqi Command and Control Radars, then that allowed the F-16C's and F-4G's with F-15C top cover to also go 'Downtown' during Desert Storm. "Many aircraft including the F-117 were used to attack targets in Baghdad, which was the most heavily defended area of Iraq. The same target was hit several times by F-117, and the last package consisted of seventeen F-111F on the 19th day of the war." The F111's could carry 24, 1,000 pound bombs on it's pylons, plus radar guided laser smart bombs. Plus, it had to range to fly to Bagdad and back, without aerial refueling. It was a huge aircraft. F-111 Weapon Load Description (f-111.net)
What is interesting about the F4 is that three branches of the US military used that great airplane but could not bring themselves to do the same thing with the F111. It would have saved the government many billions back when a billion was a lot of money. I think two of the main reasons they didn't was it wasn't the military admirals idea and they had their favorite aircraft producers who they planned on getting into bed with upon retirement. Payback is still a big problem with our military and politicians.
@@jnbfrancisco The difference is that the F-4 was beneficial to all branches. The USAF needed an interdiction, all weather tactical strike aircraft, the marines didn't need that and so they kept with the A-6's and phantoms which were cheaper. And then you have the F-111B which was described as the worst thing to ever take off from a carrier. "There is not enough thrust in all of christendom to make a navy fighter out of that airplane.". It's safety record even in testing was abysmal, performance was bad, the thing was ultimately just too goddamn big and heavy to fit and take off from a carrier, couldn't maneuver for shit and generally was a total waste of time. However the AN/AWG-9 and the AIM-54 phoenix developed for the program went on to be used to great success in the F-14 tomcat, an airplane which made sense for the role and remains one of the most successful fighters of all time. This isn't to discredit the F-111, but it was an airplane designed first and foremost for the USAF, and the pentagon pretty much said "Hey the navy would like this for their fleet defense fighter" without asking the navy for what they wanted. Also let's not act like the F-111 or the F-14 were cheap, they were the most expensive aircraft in the world to operate and build.
Spent almost a year, there. King Fahd AB, Taif, Saudi Arabia. I was a weapons loader for the 48th TFW, there. Me and my crew loaded 352,500 lbs. of live munitions (total of 266 bombs) during the busiest month and a half of my life. All these shots in the vid were during Op. Desert Shield, during training sorties, during the buildup. No munitions on any of the F models shown. We arrived there from RAF Lakenheath, UK, on Aug 22 1990, and trained all the way till Jan 17 1991. Then the party began!
jonesy97 I was a weapons loader as well on this plane, same air wing, back in 1981- 1985. We took the 20mm cannons out and installed the Ford Aerospace Pave-Tack pods. Thanks for your service !!!
And for yours, as well, bud! When I first got to the D models at Cannon, in 1987, I was so glad that I NEVER had to mess with that 20mm gun. I heard everything about it (including cleaning, and RnR) was a real pain in the ass!
Damn I remember that, I was in support of the 48th. We provided communications out of King Fahd, 2 CCG, 22nd CCSQ. The night sorties the F111's did were awesome, you could see the rings in the flames from the afterburners and the crack of the air when they launched. I worked nights and got to see all that, didn't sleep well the next morning after shift. They were launching 24/7. The F117A's were there too, but in my opinion not near as impressive.
Visually great sequences of the Thundervark and Sparkvark in flights and takeoff rollouts.These spearheaded supersonic strike bombers delivered a majority of the payloads into Iraq and the EF-111's provided jamming coverage to ALL strike packages from other bases as well.They retired in 1996 and the Sparkies in 98...what a loss for America's air force and the world's peace keeping efforts.
australia needed these to deter any nearby adversaries with funny ideas, pity theyre retired now, really fast, able to fly extremely low and carry massive amount of bombs deterred many a foe locally
Doctor you really want to know why my hearing is gone and my back, knees and ankles are rooted? 20 years of work on F111's and the TF30 engine, is that enough? Great times and would not change it for anything. (RAAF Pigs did fly)
Oh boy the maintenance hours required on the F111 would boggle the mind. Can't remember how many all nighters I spent on those birds. But when it worked man did it work well.
We only remember the good times. Few who comment on the one-eleven seem to remember what a pig it was. It only did that wonder stuff after being kicked into the air kicking and screaming all the way. It was a maintenance pig. But it was fun. I went onto a career in aviation maintenance, and the Vark was a perfect teacher.
I worked on the F111D for 3 yrs. Heard some complaints about maintenance hours. I had nothing to compare it to except later on the CH53Es and H60s for the US Navy. They required a lot too. It was so rare that the two CH53Es that the Navy Squadron I worked for had, were both able to fly at the same time. We took pictures when they did. Maybe all sofisticated aircraft with many complicated systems that other aircraft don't have but are required to penitrate a sofisticated enemy's defences require a lot of maintenance too.
Most of the Aussies had ones build in 1968 and retired them in 2010 but could have kept them going into 2020 but cost was too high. Kinda funny knowing that they were always showing age 30 years before in the 80's.
Imagine the D models. The E was supposed to be an interim variant until all the bugs could worked out of the D. They never did get that model right avionics wise.
I still remember the last two that I saw. F-111 E Ravens flying out on a cold fall day with low clouds at Peterson Air Force Base. They stopped for fuel and headed west California.
Will never forget watching CNN coverage of the 1st few days... They were showing aircraft takeoffs, I seem to recall Wolf Blitzed (er..um...Blitzer) starting the conversation off this way: "I think those are F-111's...yes, those are definitely F-111's." Can't remember who the other anchor was, but I remember this: "Are you sure? I don't think there are any F-111's left." "I'm pretty sure that's what they are." They were SEPECAT Jaguars.
Very good shots, but I would like more high quality. Say, you have the footage in good quality (about operation desert Storm)?. Can share with me? I collect videos about the War in the Gulf (especially about the air campaign). Thanks in advance.
To be fair, they spent a DECADE trying to debug the F-111. The plane had huge problems. It was overweight, overcomplicated, and because of the way the program was run it probably had more problems than it should have. They fixed those problems but only after wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the botched "commonality" concept which resulted in the plane being overweight because of aircraft carrier operating concerns and all the other compromises to make it work for the Navy and Air Force. The Navy really wanted a fighter to replace the F-4, the Air Force wanted a tactical bomber and they're just the same concept getting away from the vast differences between operating off landstrips and aircraft carriers but the Sec of Def McNamara wouldn't listen and there was nobody with the guts to challenge him who really had the engineering understanding to simplify the argument and make the case that the F-111 is NOT how a tactical program should be done! They've repeated the same mistakes with the F-35. They really should have let the Marines have their Harrier replacement and then let them fix their own unique design, started separate Navy strike-fighter program and THEN adapt the Navy plane for Air Force needs. That's the only way it's EVER worked in the past! Adapting land-based to naval needs has never worked out particularly well. The F-35 really was intended to be a Harrier replacement but they got this idea in their head that if the engines were powerful enough, even a chunky plane could be adapted for tri-service use AND they could load it up with all these sensors. I'd be more concerned about the avionics at this point... If they don't work well, the plane doesn't have a conventional HUD the pilot can revert to! The engine situation is troubling but not insurmountable. The airframe was definitely compromised for the Navy and Air Force because of the need to evolve it from V/STOL to conventional aircraft carrier and Air Force use. You would think the other versions would be much better but they generally aren't. It was compromised from the beginning by having to have the insides redesigned for each particular service and having to work from the baseline Harrier-mission V/STOL airframe. Again, this was a screwed up way to run a program and they really should have learned from what happened with the F-111 but they didn't!
James G. Burton The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard The best book on how the pentagon and industry can fuck up everything they get in there hands.
Mcmarar wanted multi mission B/S also to cut costs on the M-!6 he deleted having the barrels chrome lined which caused the rifle to jam plus he deleted having a cleaning kit by his hands he caused the death of untold numbers of servicemen
who's F111 are they, Australian or US? I thought only Australian air force was the only country who had the F111after 1985. so I suppose this would be Australian air force showing hear in desert storm
These are USAF F-111s. The RAAF didn't deploy a single combat aircraft throughout the conflict. USAF FB-111s retired in 1991, Gs in 1993, Es in 1995, Fs in 1996 and EF-111As in 1998.
Best plane and if they were to fit the 20mm Vulcan cannon it's on the left side and it should be able to go dogfight with a MIG-21 or Mirage F1 Iraqi Air Force with the risk of shooting one down Armee l'air 🇫🇷 Mirage F1 friendly.
the F Model ( with pavetack) and improved TF-30-P-100 engines were affectionately(and correctly ) called THUNDERVARKS...stand near to one on takeoff rollout and you'll see why...
True. Although these wouldn't be US airforce F111s, as only Australian Airforce was the only country that had the F111 in operation after 1985. the US was using F15s F14s F16s F/A18s B1B1 Lancers and B2 stealth bombers B52 Stratofortress from 1985 onwards till the F117 knighthawk including F18 super hornets F35s and F22s came along, Australian airforce was the only country using F111 A/C/G Aardvark, nicknamed by Aussies as the Pig. the US airforce retired the remaining F111Cs that the US airforce used mainly for training purposes in 1996. The only electronic version was mainly in Australia fleet version that was retired in December 2010. Australia replaced with F18F super hornets and EA18G growlers, electronic attack aircraft. Australia is also to replace all 100 older F/A18 A/B Hornets with 75 of F35A lightning 2 strike fighters between 2018 /2019. To my knowledge, it was Australia that only used the F111 during desert storm 91 and 92
The F-111, the Tornado, and the Buccaneer were all in top form and in the perfect environment for very high speed, extremely low level attack missions, day or night, in any weather.
Great video. Was EOR Super at Cannon when the Varks were sent to the Boneyard. Worked E, F and EF models. 3 years at Heyford as well
Loved working on them in the late "80's"
Loved working on the F-111E in the mid '70's. Was a crew chief at Upper Heyford. Always liked night launches and watching the burners go from yellow/red to a bright blue/white. Very nice video. Thank you!
Rickey, I am the son of a 111 crew chief Greg Weigl. I was born in Oxford while both parents (AD Air Force) were stationed at Upper Heyford. have memories of Cannon AFB growing up and Dad spent the twilight of his career with EF-Ravens and was nearly killed at Khobar Towers. Good to meet you and God Bless...nothing like an Aardvark Crew Chief.
Hi Rickey. I worked as an instrument \ autopilot tech on the F111D at Cannon AFB in the early 70s. My favorite thing was to work with the crew chief who sort of owned the airplane I was sent to fix. They were usually great help because they knew the particulars of their airplane and could help you operate the hydraulic and electrical systems. That situation changed before I left in 1974 where the crew chiefs were no longer assigned to a particular plane. I would have go on the job with another tech from my shop because you nearly always needed two people. It was better if the other person was the owner.
In the approach it looks like an bigungainly fowl with tractor tires. At speed it’s as dart like an aircraft ever put into production.
Best airplane ever. The 111's and the F-117 were the only aircraft that were allowed to bomb downtown Bagdad during Desert Storm, because of their speed and jamming gear and heavy bomb load capability, and because of their stealth. All 111's carry jamming gear, not just the EF-111's, which carries much more but no bombs.
What about the f-15e ?
@@thodorisvlastos6304 The F-15E, is really a all-weather multirole strike fighter derived from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. The only time it becomes an electronic warfare aircraft, is when it's carrying the externally mounted ALQ-131 ECM pod which is carried on the centerline pylon when required. It's not a real jamming aircraft, such as the late F-111EF Raven or the EA-18G Prowler, which carries jamming gear to protect other aircraft flying to their mission. During Vietnam, all F111-A's, C and D models, carried a right seat WSO, carried jammers, radar track breaking pods, flares, chaff, and IR missile detection systems. Only the Jamming pods were externally mounted. It was a huge aircraft and on the deck, no aircraft could keep up with it. They flew over 6,500 mission in Vietnam, and lost 6 aircraft. 2 were do to the right engine catching fire, 2 were when they slammed into mountains from TFR failure, and the other two, we never found out. F111's were also the first aircraft to use Smart Bombs in Vietnam, like we saw in the first Gulf War.
@@jazzmaan707 i thought that the f-15E had a jammer of it's own but then again i dont really know about electronic warfare equipment
@@thodorisvlastos6304 Some F15E will carry a jamming pod, but because of it's long range radar and fighter capabilities, it's used more as a Dog Fighter/Strike aircraft, than as an EW aircraft, such as the Navy's EA-6B Prowler, which also carries the same Dome antenna on top of the vertical stabilizer that the EF-111 Raven carried. On the deck and at night, not even the F15 could stay with the F-111, which is how an EF-111 killed a Mirage during Desert Storm, as it could fly at 960 knots on the deck. The F-15E's main goal is to rule the skies and fly cap for the slower bomb-laden aircraft on the way to their target.
Check out the video about the F-111. th-cam.com/video/jAyMklJSwi8/w-d-xo.html
Yes, many F-16C's and F-4G's with F-15C top cover also went 'Downtown' during Desert Storm, but not in the beginning.
After the F117's & F-111's, with ECM jamming by the EF-111's had taken out the Iraqi Command and Control Radars, then that allowed the F-16C's and F-4G's with F-15C top cover to also go 'Downtown' during Desert Storm.
"Many aircraft including the F-117 were used to attack targets in Baghdad, which was the most heavily defended area of Iraq. The same target was hit several times by F-117, and the last package consisted of seventeen F-111F on the 19th day of the war."
The F111's could carry 24, 1,000 pound bombs on it's pylons, plus radar guided laser smart bombs. Plus, it had to range to fly to Bagdad and back, without aerial refueling. It was a huge aircraft.
F-111 Weapon Load Description (f-111.net)
Fantastic footage used to love watching F-111 flight ops at Raf Lakenheath in the late 80's & early 90's
Cool video! Love the Vark.
Awesome! ... we used to get RAAF F111's at Kiwi airshows here in NZ.. thanks from NZ ✈️🇳🇿
A badass Bomber, I was a crew chief on the F-4 Phantom, many moons ago, anyway, the Aardvark carried more ordinance than the Phantom, good stuff!!
What is interesting about the F4 is that three branches of the US military used that great airplane but could not bring themselves to do the same thing with the F111. It would have saved the government many billions back when a billion was a lot of money. I think two of the main reasons they didn't was it wasn't the military admirals idea and they had their favorite aircraft producers who they planned on getting into bed with upon retirement. Payback is still a big problem with our military and politicians.
@@jnbfrancisco The difference is that the F-4 was beneficial to all branches. The USAF needed an interdiction, all weather tactical strike aircraft, the marines didn't need that and so they kept with the A-6's and phantoms which were cheaper. And then you have the F-111B which was described as the worst thing to ever take off from a carrier. "There is not enough thrust in all of christendom to make a navy fighter out of that airplane.". It's safety record even in testing was abysmal, performance was bad, the thing was ultimately just too goddamn big and heavy to fit and take off from a carrier, couldn't maneuver for shit and generally was a total waste of time. However the AN/AWG-9 and the AIM-54 phoenix developed for the program went on to be used to great success in the F-14 tomcat, an airplane which made sense for the role and remains one of the most successful fighters of all time. This isn't to discredit the F-111, but it was an airplane designed first and foremost for the USAF, and the pentagon pretty much said "Hey the navy would like this for their fleet defense fighter" without asking the navy for what they wanted. Also let's not act like the F-111 or the F-14 were cheap, they were the most expensive aircraft in the world to operate and build.
Great footage...thanks!
Spent almost a year, there. King Fahd AB, Taif, Saudi Arabia. I was a weapons loader for the 48th TFW, there. Me and my crew loaded 352,500 lbs. of live munitions (total of 266 bombs) during the busiest month and a half of my life.
All these shots in the vid were during Op. Desert Shield, during training sorties, during the buildup. No munitions on any of the F models shown. We arrived there from RAF Lakenheath, UK, on Aug 22 1990, and trained all the way till Jan 17 1991. Then the party began!
jonesy97 I was a weapons loader as well on this plane, same air wing, back in 1981- 1985. We took the 20mm cannons out and installed the Ford Aerospace Pave-Tack pods. Thanks for your service !!!
And for yours, as well, bud! When I first got to the D models at Cannon, in 1987, I was so glad that I NEVER had to mess with that 20mm gun. I heard everything about it (including cleaning, and RnR) was a real pain in the ass!
jonesy97 I believe I was the only female weapons loader there with the 48th TFW.
Hi jonesy97. Tell me please, what difficulties did you have during Operation Desert Storm?
A R Wall. Wow. please tell me if you were scared during operations?
Damn I remember that, I was in support of the 48th. We provided communications out of King Fahd, 2 CCG, 22nd CCSQ. The night sorties the F111's did were awesome, you could see the rings in the flames from the afterburners and the crack of the air when they launched. I worked nights and got to see all that, didn't sleep well the next morning after shift. They were launching 24/7. The F117A's were there too, but in my opinion not near as impressive.
Visually great sequences of the Thundervark and Sparkvark in flights and takeoff rollouts.These spearheaded supersonic strike bombers delivered a majority of the payloads into Iraq and the EF-111's provided jamming coverage to ALL strike packages from other bases as well.They retired in 1996 and the Sparkies in 98...what a loss for America's air force and the world's peace keeping efforts.
mrf111stick time flies...
I forgot about them calling it the Spark Vark. I was at Cannon from 87-90 and remember getting them and FB-111's. Pretty awesome aircraft.
Truly awesome aircraft, and some of the very best years of my life.
@@revengefullobster4524 You got F-111Gs not FB-111s. FB-111s were retired in 1991.
@@patrickflohe7748 Rodger that. *2 mic clicks*
australia needed these to deter any nearby adversaries with funny ideas, pity theyre retired now, really fast, able to fly extremely low and carry massive amount of bombs deterred many a foe locally
@7:30 Lakenheath F111's
Great plane!
F-117 should Say: thank you.
Doctor you really want to know why my hearing is gone and my back, knees and ankles are rooted? 20 years of work on F111's and the TF30 engine, is that enough? Great times and would not change it for anything. (RAAF Pigs did fly)
They got their honor in “Strike Fighters Modern Combat” for the Desert Storm campaign.
Oh boy the maintenance hours required on the F111 would boggle the mind. Can't remember how many all nighters I spent on those birds. But when it worked man did it work well.
We only remember the good times. Few who comment on the one-eleven seem to remember what a pig it was. It only did that wonder stuff after being kicked into the air kicking and screaming all the way. It was a maintenance pig. But it was fun. I went onto a career in aviation maintenance, and the Vark was a perfect teacher.
I worked on the F111D for 3 yrs. Heard some complaints about maintenance hours. I had nothing to compare it to except later on the CH53Es and H60s for the US Navy. They required a lot too. It was so rare that the two CH53Es that the Navy Squadron I worked for had, were both able to fly at the same time. We took pictures when they did. Maybe all sofisticated aircraft with many complicated systems that other aircraft don't have but are required to penitrate a sofisticated enemy's defences require a lot of maintenance too.
The D model was by most accounts the most capable variant. Amazing avionics suite when it worked, but it rarely ever did for long.
Worked on E models at Heyford in the 80s. These planes were showing their age then. Some were built in 66!
I was at UH from early 1981 until late '82. I was flight-line Fire Protection.
Most of the Aussies had ones build in 1968 and retired them in 2010 but could have kept them going into 2020 but cost was too high. Kinda funny knowing that they were always showing age 30 years before in the 80's.
Imagine the D models. The E was supposed to be an interim variant until all the bugs could worked out of the D. They never did get that model right avionics wise.
I still remember the last two that I saw. F-111 E Ravens flying out on a cold fall day with low clouds at Peterson Air Force Base. They stopped for fuel and headed west California.
Last one I saw flying was an F model flying over the south side of Edwards AFB towards "Haystack" in 95.
No ordinance or drop tanks under the wings? Is this video really from Desert Storm?
Will never forget watching CNN coverage of the 1st few days...
They were showing aircraft takeoffs, I seem to recall Wolf Blitzed (er..um...Blitzer) starting the conversation off this way:
"I think those are F-111's...yes, those are definitely F-111's."
Can't remember who the other anchor was, but I remember this:
"Are you sure? I don't think there are any F-111's left."
"I'm pretty sure that's what they are."
They were SEPECAT Jaguars.
It was CNN--what did you expect?
Was with the 474th TFW bombing North Viet Nam and with the 20th out of RAF Upper Heyford in the late 70's....
This is awesome
BEST FUCKIN PLANE EVER
Steven Chorney
You hit the nail on the head, Mister!
These are us Lakenheatht f111fs from the 494th sqdrn. Ssgt Ellis
Thank you for your service! My father was a WSO with the Panthers '94 to '97.
Fighter mechanics, pilots, and experts are men with biggest fortune in salary :).
Riazor1370 money is no good if it kills you in the process
Fantastic bomber
My brother in law was there he was a staff sergeant
I was there. Avionics "C" shop.
pretty effective.
Very good shots, but I would like more high quality. Say, you have the footage in good quality (about operation desert Storm)?. Can share with me? I collect videos about the War in the Gulf (especially about the air campaign). Thanks in advance.
Yes, F-111F been flown Operation Desert Storm over Kuwait Campaign Mission and Iraq Mission in 1990.
Good Canaria
not bad for a 50+ year old airframe
'
come on america...
america can make it many more F-111se jetplanes with better fast speeding up, more mile ranges, great update systems
No. We are building the trillion dollar F 35. The goal is to make it take off without catching fire in another 5 years!!
To be fair, they spent a DECADE trying to debug the F-111.
The plane had huge problems. It was overweight, overcomplicated, and because of the way the program was run it probably had more problems than it should have.
They fixed those problems but only after wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the botched "commonality" concept which resulted in the plane being overweight because of aircraft carrier operating concerns and all the other compromises to make it work for the Navy and Air Force. The Navy really wanted a fighter to replace the F-4, the Air Force wanted a tactical bomber and they're just the same concept getting away from the vast differences between operating off landstrips and aircraft carriers but the Sec of Def McNamara wouldn't listen and there was nobody with the guts to challenge him who really had the engineering understanding to simplify the argument and make the case that the F-111 is NOT how a tactical program should be done!
They've repeated the same mistakes with the F-35. They really should have let the Marines have their Harrier replacement and then let them fix their own unique design, started separate Navy strike-fighter program and THEN adapt the Navy plane for Air Force needs. That's the only way it's EVER worked in the past! Adapting land-based to naval needs has never worked out particularly well.
The F-35 really was intended to be a Harrier replacement but they got this idea in their head that if the engines were powerful enough, even a chunky plane could be adapted for tri-service use AND they could load it up with all these sensors. I'd be more concerned about the avionics at this point... If they don't work well, the plane doesn't have a conventional HUD the pilot can revert to! The engine situation is troubling but not insurmountable. The airframe was definitely compromised for the Navy and Air Force because of the need to evolve it from V/STOL to conventional aircraft carrier and Air Force use. You would think the other versions would be much better but they generally aren't. It was compromised from the beginning by having to have the insides redesigned for each particular service and having to work from the baseline Harrier-mission V/STOL airframe.
Again, this was a screwed up way to run a program and they really should have learned from what happened with the F-111 but they didn't!
hi B...
dont worry about currencys...
time to make more better B-1, B-2, B-52, F-14 to YF-23 planes...
dont need to wait wait toooo long 5 years later
hi A...
F-111 plane is more faster speeding than F-35...
B-1 and F-111 are great planes
James G. Burton
The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard
The best book on how the pentagon and industry can fuck up everything they get in there hands.
Mcmarar wanted multi mission B/S also to cut costs on the M-!6 he deleted having the barrels chrome lined which caused the rifle to jam plus he deleted having a cleaning kit by his hands he caused the death of untold numbers of servicemen
Cause of his bright ideas look at the F4 phantom 'll navy air force marines all flew it cause of him cause of him the phantom came first without a gun
The only good thing mcnamara ever did was to get the F-111!
who's F111 are they, Australian or US? I thought only Australian air force was the only country who had the F111after 1985. so I suppose this would be Australian air force showing hear in desert storm
These are USAF F-111s. The RAAF didn't deploy a single combat aircraft throughout the conflict. USAF FB-111s retired in 1991, Gs in 1993, Es in 1995, Fs in 1996 and EF-111As in 1998.
USA, Lakenheath, Mt Home, Heyford.
Best plane and if they were to fit the 20mm Vulcan cannon it's on the left side and it should be able to go dogfight with a MIG-21 or Mirage F1 Iraqi Air Force with the risk of shooting one down Armee l'air 🇫🇷 Mirage F1 friendly.
my baby's
Saudi
Its a f-111 Aardvark not a thundervark
the F Model ( with pavetack) and improved TF-30-P-100 engines were affectionately(and correctly ) called THUNDERVARKS...stand near to one on takeoff rollout and you'll see why...
FORD 16 year mechanic
The F-111F is known by many of us who loved her, as the ThunderVark.
True. Although these wouldn't be US airforce F111s, as only Australian Airforce was the only country that had the F111 in operation after 1985. the US was using F15s F14s F16s F/A18s B1B1 Lancers and B2 stealth bombers B52 Stratofortress from 1985 onwards till the F117 knighthawk including F18 super hornets F35s and F22s came along, Australian airforce was the only country using F111 A/C/G Aardvark, nicknamed by Aussies as the Pig. the US airforce retired the remaining F111Cs that the US airforce used mainly for training purposes in 1996. The only electronic version was mainly in Australia fleet version that was retired in December 2010. Australia replaced with F18F super hornets and EA18G growlers, electronic attack aircraft. Australia is also to replace all 100 older F/A18 A/B Hornets with 75 of F35A lightning 2 strike fighters between 2018 /2019. To my knowledge, it was Australia that only used the F111 during desert storm 91 and 92
You are so wrong. They were there in desert storm.
Anchialem Abebe th-cam.com/video/OXBIn5THqd4/w-d-xo.html
@GG way to delete your ignorant comments
total fluff !! don't waste yer time