![]() ![]() In reality the “F” designation was a stretch. Once Air Training Command had their hooks in you that was it. ![]() It ended up not mattering since they decided to make me a T-38 instructor. Plus I knew that nobody asked for an F-111 so I figured it gave me a better shot at a fighter. I enjoyed low level flying more than I liked pulling G’s and I thought it was a cool airplane. I actually had the F-111 first on my dream sheet. Pretty much everybody’s pilot training “dream sheet” went: F-15, F-16, F-4 with the A-10 or F-111 somewhere in the last two spots. Mostly because it didn’t do air-to-air, and that’s what the fighter types want to do. I’d guess it was something more like “F*ck you Yankees! Stop bombing us!”ĭuring my days in the USAF, this was the plane nobody really wanted to fly. I tend to take these stories with a large grain of salt. Legend has it the Vietnamese called it “whispering death”. It carried enough gas to not need tanker support and it didn’t need standoff ECM (Electronic Countermeasure) support. The F-111 returned to Vietnam in 1972 and was highly successful, with only six combat losses for 4,000 sorties flown. Not a very auspicious start to an already troubled aircraft. Initial combat tests in Vietnam in 1968 resulted in the loss of three (out of six) aircraft due to a fault in the horizontal stabilizer. Note: don’t ever get the Brits started on the TSR-2. It’s like the bloody Arrow for the Canadians! Some of these also went to Australia.į-111K was to have been the British version after the TSR-2 project was cancelled. It had the longer wings of the C model.į-111G was an FB-111 converted back to a tactical aircraft. Reportedly not as capable a jammer as the Navy’s EA-6B it had the advantage of being fast enough to keep up with a strike package.įB-111 was operated by SAC as an interim between the B-58 and B-1. ![]() Easily identified by the big “football” on top of the vertical fin. It had digital avionics (but not as advanced as the D) plus the bigger engines of the E model.ĮF-111A was a dedicated electronic warfare version. There were a lot of different flavors of the F-111 and I’ll try to make some sense of them here:į-111A was the original Air Force aircraft with analog instrumentation.į-111B was the cancelled Navy fighter version.į-111C was built for Australia and had a longer wing to extend range.į-111D had digital avionics and was probably the most advanced (and troubled) version.į-111E was basically an F-111A with bigger engines.į-111F was the “Cadillac”. The otherwise excellent F-14 used the same engines and this proved to be its Achilles Heel. Unfortunately the TF-30 engines were rather susceptible to compressor stalls. An F-111 could actually cross the Atlantic without air refueling. This was possibly the first fighter to use a turbofan engine rather than a turbojet. I know one person that had to eject from an F-111 and he spent some time in the hospital with back injuries. The capsule would float, which was a plus. ![]()
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