F-111 Walkaround (HARS Museum)

[Music] so the f-111c that we have here at ha actually started its life as an American Air Force f11a and then to replace some of the ones that the Air Force had lost this came to us and had to be substantially modified with the wings extended by another 3 ft and a much greater uh under Carriage capability was added to it to allow it to serve with the rwf with the rwf the F1 11s served for 35 years it was only Australia and the US which operated this amazingly capability of this aircraft at ha this is the only one that our visitors to a museum can regularly sit in and this aircraft is actually now owned by our association in fact as our president said when he signed off on it recently it's not every day you get deci signed to take ownership of an F-111 for a 1960s design the F-111 was an amazingly Advanced aircraft not just with its swing Wing capability Wings straight out for low speed sweeping back to allow it to operate up to Mac 2.5 but the ejection system allowed not just pilotes to try and bail out but actually the whole capsule at the front of the aircraft would blast off it was fitted with rocket motor to allow the uh allow the the capsule then to be taking to a greater height and also to wash off the forward speed um parachutes would be deployed uh using the existing closed cabin until they were down to 15,000 ft they an atmospheric cabin and had buoyancy as well for survival in the ocean so a remarkable survivability for Pilots with the rwf this particular aircraft joined the rwf from America as a replacement for some of the earlier ones that were lost and it served in Vietnam so this aircraft has a war service from Vietnam with the US Air Force before it became an iaf aircraft the other side of this is it was actually the last operational F-111 in Australia because the final day uh of service a formation flew out from Amy over Brisbane came back in and landed the pilot of this particular aircraft waited for the others to shut down and one minute later he shut the engine on this the final F-111 to sign off on service after 35 years with the Royal Australian Air Force indeed it was the last operational F-111 in the world because the US Air Force had ceased operation of these aircraft before Australia and then uh we followed suit so you we are literally sitting in aviation history on board this f111 and our visitors to the museum as part of their tour get the opportunity to experience that history by sitting in the cockpit at the Museum on the day was a former f111 Navigator and Weapons Systems Officer Phil McDonald who was involved in the delivery of the first f-111s to Australia we asked Phil if he wouldn't mind giving us a walk around and tell us about the aircraft the aircraft was designed in the early 60s it was quite remarkable aircraft for its time with we didn't have digital then it was all analog and it had some remarkable features um didn't fly till 67 but it was the first to have the swing Wing as you can see the wings back where they are now that can do two and a half times the speed of sound the Wings come forward for takeoff landing and they can be in any other position for various speed and uh altitude requirements it was quite technologically advanced for its time particularly again that it was all analog it was the first have the swing wing it was the first to have an ejectable capsule in other words the whole cockpit ejects instead of going out in the seat and that was to protect the crew because it speeds of up to Mark 2.5 2 and 1 half times the speed of sound you wouldn't be comfortable going out in the seat I don't think so the first have also train following radar and that's a that's where the aircraft can follow the terrain there's a selection no on the center console 200 300 400 500 750 or 1,000 ft so you can select 200 ft and you'd be doing 1100 km hour 1100 km/ hour normally maybe but up to Mark 1.2 with no hands so it would follow the terrain down through the valleys and over the hills and that was to avoid radar in other words hide behind the hills there's a great es SC carment out here for instance you could one of our targets simulated targets was here and you could hide behind hide behind that escarment they won't pick you up on radar until you pop up to deliver your weapons so a lot of very first things um the escape capsule if it landed in water it has flotation bags it has a radio antenna comes up flotation bags and so it's all designed to protect the crew we got ours delivered 24 in 1973 and then later when we after we lost a couple they bought for secondhand American f111 a this is a c the A's were different in that they had the shorter Wing uh Australia because of the long distances we anticipated one of the longer Wing like the American Navy version which didn't end up going into production or into service and the FB 111a which was the Nuclear Strike Strategic Air Command as it was called then aircraft it had the longer wing and there's a lot of fuel in the wing so it gives you extra range and it also adds to the weight so it needed a stronger undercarriage as well so our f111 C's had the longer wing of both the f111b and the FB 1111a and the stronger undercarriage okay now as I said before once we lost a couple uh we bought four secondhand f111a with shorter wings and they actually modified them extended their wings put in the stronger undercarriage you'll see on the undercarriage it says fb11 and um that cost a lot of money they did four and they said well we're not going to do that again and so this is actually one of those secondhand ones so even though Australia didn't have them in any conflict they had them in D I think ready for teamour and things uh this one had with the Americans it served in Vietnam there's a book on it on aircraft in Vietnam used by the Americans and this one is listed as is having some battle damage and there's a couple of patches on the side of the aircraft that from Battle damage it received in Vietnam when we got them back and formed the first Squadron the co sat us down that was sixth Squadron in 1973 and said these are very controversial the cost overruns uh time delays because of modifications that were required a new government in power that cost $20 million they'll have to last 20 years well they lasted 37 with upgrades Etc so it's a magnificent aircraft and what a privilege it was to be 24 year old and flying the most technologically advanced aircraft in the world and delivering not only that training in American and bringing them back here so this is 109 as I said one of the secondhand ones we' bought and uh here it is to live in ha I mentioned the uh battle damage I think that's a patch over some of the battle damage this one one when it was in American Service got in Vietnam remarkable thing about these another first which I didn't mention before was that it was the first to have turbo fan engines that's jet engines with a small fan uh with After Burner which is the After Burner is what's used for supersonic flight and extra takeoff so one of the great we were told when we were at in training over there and when I went to the factory where they were built the most costly part of the design was this air intake because you can't have supersonic air going into a turbo fan the fan would store so this actually is called a a variable Inlet Spike and it as you go faster it gets fatter it moves back and gets fatter to reduce the amount of air then you got all those Vortex generators to slow the air down so it's not supersonic when it hits the fan that's very briefly but at slow speed you actually need more speed more air sorry so this cow is a translating cow it moves forward to get more air in when you're going slow so going very fast we need less air and going slow we made more this is the wing carer box this Wing will come forward and of course we'll go out almost out to there 16° when F fully forward when that's for takeoff and we have Leading Edge slats and trading Edge flaps back the S your Airborne they sweep them back to 26° clean it up bring in the flaps and flats and that's you're also your longrange cruise Wing suite and then depending on your speed the wing suep can be anywhere from 26 to 72 72 is where you're going supersonic 2 and 1 half times the speed of sound and anything in between this large door here for the undercarriage also serves while you're Airborne as a speed brake so it can be lowered without lowering the wheels to slow the aircraft down and that sort of thing okay very strong undercarriage as you'll see most of the fuel well there's m a multitude of fuel tanks but the wing belly tanks side tanks and various other places now because the aircraft doesn't have has a swing wing it doesn't have aerons now aerons is what aircraft normally used to turn so this one the horizontal stabilizer at the back has to do both jobs of the elevators which normally used for climb descent and aerons are used for turning work asymmetrically so these horizontal stabilizers are 156 ft all on that one pin you imagine when you go supersonic the pressure on them and they have to work symmetrically for climb climbing and descending and asymmetrically for turning and both asymmetrically and symmetrically at the same time so that's an unusual feature we have a various sensors on the aircraft electronic counter measures missile approach Warning Systems radar homing and Waring systems these are all systems to detect missiles or Radars painting on you and steering missiles at you and then underneath here we have we can dispense flares so if you detect a heat-seeking missile coming you can dispense flares that will drop away explode at a higher temperature than the engine and the heat seeking missile hopefully will follow it otherwise there's chaff in there as well chaff is was around in World War II that's just aluminum strip so you got to casset about that big it drops away explodes 10,000 strips of aluminum to confuse radar and that sort of stuff you might have seen at air shows on TV or at air shows in person they have this procedure they call a dump and burn and that's where they dump their fuel not lik by a lot of air crew but the crowds like it so they do it they dump fuel from this port even jumbo Jets dump fuel if they take CU they can take off heavier than they can land SA safely for the undercarriage they dump the fuel out of this point here and when they light the reheat section of the engine called After Burner as the fuel is being ejected it starts to burn and you get a 70 to 80t Flame now this contraption here underneath is called a PVE Tac now when we did when we got these in 1973 this is the internal weapons Bay but rarely are weapons carried there weapons are normally carried on pylons under the Wings which we don't have any on right now when we first got it we had a six barrel Gatling gun in there 6,000 rounds a minute 20 mm it would come down on the cage when you wanted it and go back into the bay where there was also an ammunition bin when it's not in use so you don't have drag when this technology became available it's called a PVE tack it's a forward looking infrared and Laser guidance system and again that's in a display position that V's head looking thing should be facing down when it's in use and it can pivot back and forward you can see from the the rings around it and when not in use that rolls back in and all you'd see was the little bump so it's not creating drag you can highlight the target with a with Ford looking infrared and lay a laser beam and drop laser guided bombs so it's quite an advancement cuz it was really too big in bulky for it to be a fighter even though it's called a fighter bomber it's really a a bomber now that is a capsule that was used in an ejection I think it's the one that they were still on the ground when they ejected the ejections parameters are 050 0 altitude 50 knots I believe they were at 90 knots at the end of the runway when they ejected so the Hulk capsule ejects okay 27,000 lb rocket motor it's got two nozzles one facing vertically and one facing after and the computers work out with the speed altitude which nozzle most of the power will go through obviously if you're at 35,000 ft going twice the speed of sound you don't want the vertical nozzle getting all the power you just flip over so that's what it's designed for two ejection handles but whoever pulls the handle you both go um as soon as the capsu separates an impact attenuation bag in plates underneath the capsule and that's about that large and it's made up of many chambers of air and that's designed cuz this is heavy and when you land it's going to be heavy so that impact attenuation back it deflates at a predetermined rate as you as you land to to break the the force of the landing but it's still i' a couple of the chaps I know who have ejected said you ejected about 15 G's and landed about 20 and you black out for a few seconds so it is a heavy Landing okay when they if you're on the ground and you eject the shoot should take the rocket M should take you up to about 800 ft then the main parachute deploys and down you come okay if you're at altitude when you eject you don't want the main shoot coming out immediately CU it would tear itself to Pieces so there's a little drug shoot that comes out this is designed aerodynamically it's got a stabilizer stabilizer fin there so you eject and it's a Dr shoot just keeps it it descends to a lower speed and this here is a bar estatic lock that's a pressure ultimeter lock okay so when you past 15,000 the main shoot should open and then bring you down okay rather than opening at 35,000 and tearing itself to pieces now if it doesn't what do you do I mean you're sitting there you've ejected and you're probably having a chat CU you've got nothing else to do picking up the kids after school maybe going for a beer then with the St by ultimeter is still working so then you notice you pass 15,000 and the shoot hasn't opened what to do don't worry you can do it yourself okay there's a backup so it's a very good system and uh as I said there's a couple of people I've spoken to who have survived the ejection quite well anything else we've got here as I say terrain following radar a switch there the other interesting thing here now I got out after I was on them a couple of years so over the next 20 years um 25 plus they probably introduced new procedures but when I was on them that seat over there where I sat is there Navigator weapon systems officer you've still got a control column and throttles okay so all we were taught is that in case the pilot got taken out your low level the birds were a big problem okay if he got taken out by a bird or he got shot or had a heart attack all we were trying to do was to recover the aircraft get it to a safe area and height for ejection okay not to land it now whether that changed later when the as they Advanced over the 37 years I don't know but that's all we were trying to do the reason that has two control columns is we were told at in America where we trained was it was originally designed for two pilots so they' get a pilot who' been on Pilot's course for 12 months and they say you're going to sit in that rightand seat for 12 months and before you can fly in the left hand SE now over there there's a lot of equipment there's electronic counter measur there's bombing systems there's radar systems there's navigation systems an awful lot to learn now these guys have just spent 12 months Learning to Fly they're not interested in learning all that stuff all they want to do is sit over here or fly it so that wasn't working so they took them out put Navigators in and call them weapon systems officers and that's of course I did in America was called that at NIS Air Force Base so I'm very pleased that happened because I got to sit there but they left the control columns and the throttles and all that so what we do normally to practice those unusual attitudes then was after the last part of an exercise we'd bomb drop bombs at evans's head range then on our way back to amble Air Force Space we 4 foot of airspace normally 20 to 24,000 with brisen control then the pilot would say to me pull your visors down close your eyes and it turned it upside down and point it to the ground and say recover and there were standard recovery procedures which even people in light aircraft would know 64 cord in Center R is neutral and then if it's upside down you flip it up the right way and you fly to a safe area in altitude for ejection so that was about it so A beautiful aircraft when you consider that I had previously been me on the Neptune you saw out there then the camra and then well this was the Rolls-Royce obviously so it was uh quite a remarkable thing to be involved in okay I think that's about it as I say following the terrain was often a problem when the pilots I flew would had flowing mirages Sabers mirages uh then there four Phantoms and for them to sit there not touching this control yolk a lot of them got Twitchy because they they used to control the aircraft but at 200 ft as I say 11 1200 km an hour and they're not allowed to touch that so they get a bit fidgety sometimes so it was a bit of a change of the whole the philosophy for flying for them a remarkable [Music] e

Channel: Australian Military Aviation History

Views: 25,018

Keywords: RAAF, aviation history, military aviation, military aviation history, aviation news, aviation

Id: 2hwF_v5x3U4

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2024