F-111 Aardvark, The Aircraft that Defined an Era

during the Vietnam War One aircraft suffered the least amount of damage even though it had been on some 4,000 combat sorties only six of them were lost to enemy action that aircraft was the f111 arvar a swing wi medium-range multi-roll combat aircraft that started in service in July 1967 and although it had a bit of a shaky start the aircraft ordered by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to cover both the needs of the USAF and the US Navy in one aircraft became one of the US af's most trusted assets this is the story of the pig as it was known to be Australian Air Force and why it was such a groundbreaking aircraft in the early 1960s the USAF were looking to replace their Republic f105 Thunder Chief fighter bombers and around the same time the US Navy were looking for a replacement for their F4 Phantoms and f8 Crusaders both Services wanted their own individual aircraft tailor to their needs but by now the cost of developing new aircraft for each of the services were spiraling out of control and the newly appointed Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was determined to do what he had done at the Ford Motor Company and streamlined a process by using one common aircraft for both Services McNamara who was brought in along with others to streamline manufacturing and management at the Ford Motor Company before becoming its president for a short while was drafted in by the JF Kennedy Administration in 1961 to be the Secretary of Defense shortly after taking office in 1961 McNamara gave the go-ahead for the Tactical fighter experiment or tfx to come up with one aircraft that could be used by both Services despite their best efforts to keep their program separate it was agreed that the design would be based on the Air Force's requirements and a modified version would be used for the Navy proposals went out to the leading Aviation companies including Boeing Lockheed McDonald North American General Dynamics and Republic Boeing and General Dynamics were selected to submit enhanced designs the Air Force preferred the Boeing option and the Navy disliked both of them but the selection board picked the Boeing 818 for going forward however in 1962 McNamara selected General Dynamics over Boeing because it had a much greater commonality of Parts between the Air Force and navy versions which would keep the cost down General Dynamics signed the contract in December 1962 and the proposal would become the f111 the most revolutionary feature of the F-111 was the swing wing and was a result of years of research by NASA to create a wing that would work well both at low speed and at high transonic and supersonic speeds that could be put reliably into production by 1958 NASA come with with a way to optimize the swing wi design with pivot Points further out from the aircraft Center Line an Air Force leaders were encouraged to look at using this swing wi designs had been tried before such as a 1952 grumm xf10 F Jaguar for the US Navy but that prototype had so many other issues it was canell before putting to production General Dynamics also shared the design with Grumman who had greater experience with carrier-based aircraft and also brought their swing-wing technology experience in fact it was reported that the swing wi was the only thing that worked well on the Grumman xf10 F Jaguar the project was known as the f111 but didn't have an official name like the F4 Phantom or the f8 Crusader it was given the nickname AR by instructor pilot alms in 1969 because of its long drooping nose and terrain following radar which was used to follow the ground for very low altitude high-speed flight arvar is an Africans word for a South African mammal with a long nose that sniffs out its food along the ground and translates into ground Pig in English the Australian Air Force the RF when they received their F-111 C's shortened that to to the more undignified name of the pig while the F-111 arvar use radar to sniff out the ground for high speed low altitude flight 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free by using the link nordvpn.com curist Droid which is at the top of the description below and there's even a 30-day money back guarantee so it's risk-free as well with Advanced Electronics swing wi configuration and after burning turbo fan engines it would give the F-111 unrivaled abilities that included attack interdiction strategic bombing reconnaissance and electronic warfare but the F-111 project was also meant to save costs and with such a lot of new technology being packed into a single aircraft it soon became clear that the development was going to be a lot more costly in both time and money than anticipated Advanced features like the terrain following radar or TFR was integrated into the flight control systems and allowed hands-off flight at high speeds and low levels down to just 200 ft or 61 M the unique feature of a swing wi configuration would give the F-111 the ability to fly at low speed take off from short runways and cruise more economically with its wings forward with the wings closed and pulled back it became almost a deltawing aircraft and could fly at Mac 1.2 a sea level and two .3 altitude but it wasn't Nimble dog fighter due to the use of every available clear space in the aircraft fuselage and wings for fuel tanks it had a range of 3,690 Mi or 5,940 km with external drop tanks minimizing its Reliance on refueling tankers and had a service ceiling of almost 66,000 ft or 20,000 M the twin pratton Whitney tf30 turbo fan engine would have first to have afterburners and produced almost £ 18,000 lb of frust dry and 21,000 lb of frust with the afterburner to give it a very high turn of speed something which the unarmed electronic warfare version The ef11 Raven relied upon to outrun its adversaries one of the other unusual features was the Twan side by-side crew capsule which would be ejected by rockets in one piece from a maximum altitude and speed down to a zero altitude and just 92 km an hour this would keep the crew safe from the dangers of a high-speed ejection up to Mac 2.3 and included a 10minute supply of oxygen independent of the aircraft it also included stabilizers and a brake parachute to stop it from spinning out of control before main shoot opened if I landed Open Water it was self-righting and watertight with flotation devices and a radio location Beacon for rescue purposes to make maximum use of the low-speed takeoff and Landing abilities of the Swing Wing the aircraft undercarriage was designed to be able to take off from short unmade runways in the Air Force version and was reinforced for the Navy version to withstand the heavy Landings and assisted launches from an aircraft carrier the f-111a would be for the USAF and the f111b would be for the US Navy the only difference between them would be the strengthened langing gear the greater Wing length and the nose cone which was shortened by 2 and 1/2 M so it would fit into existing carrier elevator decks in the first production run there will be 18 Air Force a versions and five Navy B versions however the Navy was forced into making compromise after compromise and tensions between them and the contractors were running High the requirements made by the Navy included a large 48 in or 120 CM radar dish m to the aw G9 radar with aim 54 Phoenix missiles alongside a longer loiter time and combined sidebyside crew capsule kept the weight higher than the Navy wanted even after an extensive weight loss program had been initiated when asked by Senator John C stennis in a congressional hearing on the aircraft if more powerful engines would cure the aircraft's problems vice admiral Thomas connley then Deputy Chief of Naval operations for air Warfare responded by saying there isn't enough power in all of Christendom to make that aircraft what we want the Navy finally lost patience with the f-111b and canceled the program in 1968 PRI to that point grumm had already got wind of a Navy's discontent and started development of a new naval aircraft that would do everything the f111b would do but at a lower weight and satisfy the Navy's demands this would use the same swing wi engine and radar but added an m61 Vulcan Cannon and Provisions for Sidewinder and Sparrow air toar missiles and bombs this replacement would eventually become of the Navy's F14 Tomcat while the Navy's f111b floundered the Air Force was Keen to test the f111a in combat to prove itself and its Advanced Technologies in the Vietnam War the operation was code named combat Lancer and involved sending six f111a from Nellis Air Force Base over 7,000 Mi via a transpacific route to the tuckle Royal Air Force Base 85 Mi north of Bangkok Thailand their first mission was to Target a bomb dump on Tiger Island on the coast of South Vietnam they flew in at night over the sea and at high speed in a low-level pass on the 25th of March 1968 and although there was Heavy Cloud the mission and others flown that night were considered to be a success more missions were flown over the next few nights until the 28th of March 1968 when f-111a serial number 660022 disappeared although there was an intense search and a generous reward offered neither the crew nor the aircraft wreckage were ever recovered then just 2 Days Later a second f-111a whilst descending from 10,000 ft lost control and ended up in an controlled role the crew ejected safely and were picked up less than a mile from a crash Point by an army helicopter rescue team the wreckage was located and after an initial inspection it was sent back to the General Dynamics Factory where with the help of a crew and a simulator they were able to duplicate exactly what had happened it was determined that a catastrophic structural failure of the tail plane system was caused by a fatigue fracture if that wasn't bad enough a third accident occurred on the 22nd of April 1968 and another at Nellis Air Force Base on the 8th of May 68 by this time the combat lission had been suspended then terminated in December 1969 again Nellis Air Force Base during a training Mission an f-111a with just over a 100 hours flight time on the clock was pulling up from a rocket firing pass when the left wing of the aircraft detached from a main body causing it to crash in the following investigation again fatigue cracks were found this time in the wing pivot which was present in the Z6 AC steel when manufactured the process of ultrasound testing was found to be inadequate and also the hardening process of a D6 AC steel was found to be have too much variation depending upon the quench rate which could lead to cracks although they were very small they couldn't be picked up by the test equipment but could still lead to failure once in service by 1969 new manufacturing techniques were implemented and the problem was eventually solved although 11 more failures were induced on the ground as opposed to inlight by this time the press and Congress were both condemning the aircraft as unreliable and unsafe but to the Air Force the operations in Vietnam proved that one aircraft could have twice the range with twice the payload 20% more SP speed and significantly higher navigational bombing accuracy required no tanker support electronic countermeasure support and no fighter escort all of which provided a substantial cost-saving during the rest of the Vietnam War the f111 flew more than 4,000 combat missions with the loss of only six to enemy fire the lowest of any aircraft during the conflict the F-111 would be used again in April 1986 six to conduct air strikes against Libya in operation El Dorado Canyon alongside b52s fa1 18s A6 Intruders and A7 Corsair here 24 F-111 strike aircraft and five ef-111a Ravens the electronic countermeasure versions flew a round trip between RAF Laken Heath and RAF upper haford in the United Kingdom to Libya a journey of some 6,400 Mi or 10,300 kilm spanning 13 hours just one F-111 was lost over Libya after being shot down and crashing into the mediterraneum then in 1991 the f111 saw active service again during Operation Desert Storm completing 3.2 successful strike missions for every one unsuccessful One aort Rate better than any other us strike aircraft used during your operation during Desert Storm 66 F-111 f dropped almost 80% of the laser guarded bombs including the bunker busting GBU 28 and were credited with destroying more than 1500 Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles using Precision guided Munitions although the f-111s were outstanding aircraft during the Desert Storm operation they made up just 9% of tax Fleet but took up 25% of the maintenance budget eventually the writing was on the wall for the f-111s and after nearly 30 years in service it was retired it was only at the ceremony marking the f-111s retirement on the 27th of July 1996 that it was officially named arvar its long-standing unofficial name which had been used since 1969 in 1972 Grumman were contracted to convert 42 airframes at a total cost of $1.5 billion into the ef-111a Raven the electronic warfare version which could be distinguished by the large pod on the top of the tail fin these were unofficially called the spark varar a play on the arvar name the Ravens would be used as a penetrating electronic jamming aircraft with supersonic speed and although they had no armaments their speed and acceleration were their main form of self-defense The Raven also saw service in Libya in 1986 and the Gulf War during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 the Ravens stayed on in service until 199 98 when they were also retired from service the F-111 had a shaky start but eventually became one of the US's most trusted military assets it was the first production variable geometry Wing aircraft and its success led to many other swing-wing designs both in the US Europe and the Soviet Union where the design heavily influenced the mc23 and other Soviet swing-wing aircraft of the era so I hope you enjoyed video and if you did then please thumbs up share and subscribe and a big thank you goes out to all of our patrons for their ongoing support

Channel: Curious Droid

Views: 137,902

Keywords: f-111 aardvark, ef-111, usaf, paul shillito, supersonic, bomber, fighter, curious-droid

Id: 9ISMYfHEOvc

Length: 17min 44sec (1064 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2024