Whoever wrote this needs to please, please stop saying "iconic" every few sentences.

I was a Crew Chief on F-111 E, F,s and EF,s. I thought desert storm made everyone proud to be a part of it. During and after the war I really saw what a great aircraft it truly was and I can see a need for it today

The most interesting thing about desert storm was supposed to be all the new technology, we on f-111s expected to be embarrassed by it truly, but the exact opposite happened it was the older aircraft and their performance on the ground and in the air that stunned everyone we all ate our words in one way or another. I thought it was the lesson we walked away with from an air force point of view. Norman schwartzkopf praised the 111 personally

Our RAAF family was posted to The States in 69'. Dad was the aussie Test Pilot who flew the F-111 over Texas for 2 years, before becoming the Project Manager for another 3 years for the Pig's acquisition. This plane changed my life, spending my teenage years in America. Dad remained the chief consultant on the Pig for many years.

Barnes Wallis was the first person to propose swing wing planes for high performance. This man was a genius

Worked at Hawker de havilland (Boeing) at Bankstown airport on Caribou maintenance around 1985 to 1989, I was standing on top of a caribou wing carrying out inspections when I saw an F-111c coming in from a southerly direction low level exactly over my head in between our A and B hangers. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and as he flew by I saw his Pave Tack pod swivelling pointing in my general direct, he lit his burners for a few seconds as he flew by. Whooshh and he was gone, whilst people running out of the Blackhawk and PC-9 hangers to get a glimpse of this aircraft speeding away, I think he locked on to the aircraft I was servicing..........I've been Pave Tacked and survived. 🤣

One of my instructors, 'Max' Walker, flew tripple-ones. When he went for an interview at Qantas, they asked him if he'd had experience with asymmetric thrust. He laughed and asked if an F111 counted. Apparently, it didn't. 🙂

I was lucky enough when I was a kid to live on a few different bases as my dad was RAAF. The Pig (F111) was a big part of my life dad worked on them and I got to sit in the cockpit once in the hangar and do cool stuff like watch em take of and land from the side of the run way. Pretty cool for a kid. Lots of Aussies have love for them and will miss them.

I know a retired Air Force pilot who flew F-111s. He told me their best defense against attack by other aircraft was to reach up, swing the wings back, push the throttles forward - and leave the building.

I was working with the FB111A aircraft in 1977-80. I remember the compressor casings blowing out on the Pratt & Witney engines. Grounded all of them for nine months. They were rebuilt starting in 1980 and upgraded for avionics, better inertial nav system etc. The fuselage was built by Grumman in New York with the swing wings. It was then shipped to Fort Worth Tx for finish assembly. The lessons learned were built into the F14 Tomcat.

Interesting that you mentioned the F-102 and F-106 as "lesser known" but to pilots in the USAF who flew from the 70's to the 1990's they almost universally proclaim that the F-106 was the best pure interceptor ever built.

The reason Oz bought the F-111 (Aardvark) was because it was the only jet bomber we could get at the time that could fly to Indonesia and back. It was a deterrent.

As a Aussie Farm Kid in the 80s, I use to watch with my friends as the F-111s used our School at Mount Tarampa for bomb aiming practice with their Pave Tack pods... the F-111s flew around our farm Lands all the time, even doing high G maneuvers, they would also fly level then suddenly shoot straight up into the sky, even saw F-18s doing maneuvers as well all the time.... our farm animals use to get a bit scared from the low flying F-111s, I absolutely loved seeing them, but mum phoned the Amberley Air base and she had a polite conversation with the base commander about the jets up setting our Pregnant animals, and he fully understood our concerns and was fully reasonable about our situation.... I loved that the RAAF had great respect for the people The RAAF always love to train in the cloudy and raining conditions..... when ever there is a storm out here, without fail the RAAF are doing all weather training in the storms as a kid, I also remember seeing a Finger Four Missing Man formation by the RAAF F-111s from our school as well..... I will never forget that.... And, when the F-111s retired, I got to see the F-111s fly to all of their destinations such as Brisbane, Toowoomba, ESK and so on.... and the cool thing is when I saw them flying to Toowoomba, I saw all the pilots showboating and joy riding the F-111s with each other, I remember one Pilot flying on his side along side the rest of the f-111s and waving with his wings....... I miss seeing the F-111s......

I grew up near Amberley QLD. I spent my youth marvelling at them flying over our house. I could tell when one or more were approaching and run outside in the hope of seeing them flash by. I was in the airforce cadets for awhile and yes they are big up close it always amazed me that this big chunk of metal could do mach 2.5. None the less they were a part of life for decades in South East QLD and to watch them get buried in a local landfill dump was quite sad.

Visiting Amberley some time ago I was blown away by how big the F-111 was. Quite a beast.

It was 1968. Got posted to 82 Wing Amberley for the F-111's. Delays and then enjoyed an F4E visit to Florida. Back to Amberley and then welcomed the F-111. Sadly said goodbye in 1974

Also derisively known as “McNamara’s Brand”-its ejection pod had safety issues. The pod landed too hard causing crew injuries: some temporary paralysis, and at least one permanent paralysis. I grew up near Mtn. Home AFB in the 80’s, and read with concern the local newspaper stories of our crews ejecting and getting injured in the Idaho desert.

Back in the mid 70's I lived in Sunshine (Melb). I was outside when I heard a jet in the distance, looked up and saw an F111 flying over point Cook. I quickly grabbed a pair of binoculars, climbed on the roof for a better view and watched the display which included a dump and burn. I was hooked on the F111 from that day on and was saddened when they were retired from the RAAF.

The crew escape module alone on the F-111 cost as much as an F-86 Sabre.

It would be good if you added the fact that the real fatal flaw flaw of this aircraft was the need to Deseal and Reseal the fuel tanks. This highly toxic process has Killed many of the maintainers and injured 100's more.

Hearing these beasts fly over my home town from RAF Upper Heyford was something special.

April 15, 2024 - This is an excellent, concise, and informative video. Unlike the half hour long, and "padded" video on the same subject, also available on KZfaq.👍👍😊

I have always thought that the F-111 has such a pleasing plan view. It's actually art. Of all the TFX contenders, the Fort Worth submission wins hands down for it's graceful plan view.

F-111A's were my first airplane I ever worked on. I still love that plane and miss Mtn Home. The Aussies made a deployment up to us while I was there. Those early 80's were great days. 🇺🇸❤️

The F-111B is what the Navy needs now aboard our aircraft carriers. Something that carries a large bombload and has a long range.

A superb presentation. Thank you for it.

In my 60s UK. Grew up watching from the top of Hasty Bank looking down into the Valley watching USAF FB-111 flying below. My father always knew when they were due, our picnics were "timed" to coincide with these flights. Dad knew the times that RN Buccaneers would fly in from the North Sea to have mock attacks on RAF Fylingdale, the ICNM detection Radar in UK.

I once read a great article about the terrain following radar.Those pilots must have had big balls letting a machine take them through gaps in mountains,etc

The design of this aircraft looks very good even in this day.

I would've liked you to have extended the problem solution. Correctly you discuss small defects and fracture toughness and damage tolerance. AIUI to keep the airplane in service they had to do a low temperature limit load test at some repeat interval; low temperature as this reduces the fracture toughness of the steel and this allows them to say " at room temperature any flaws in the fitting won't grow to a critical size within the next X flight hours, so the plane can fly for X/2 and have to be tested again".

I remember working in Melbourne's CBD in a high-rise office tower when an F-111 did a low fly-over during the Grand Prix. Its awesome power and beauty was breathtaking.

I was at Ft.Worth when one was there being repaired from fire damage. What an amazing aircraft. I remember seeing Lakenheath birds in Spain.

I was based at Amberley Qld in the mid-70's and remember seeing them close up on the tarmac. I was doing ATC and was privileged to see them on a daily basis; also the Chinooks, Iroquois, and Canberra bomber. I watched the last flight of a Neptune bomber [which was being phased out]. The F111-C was an impressive aircraft, but the sound of those engines... loud!

This voice at the beginning is totally appropriate. It reminds me of the guy they used in practically every weapons demonstration video from the 80's.

What a beautiful plane.....sat in one at Ellsworth AFB, Rapid City, SD.

Great aircraft after the problems were sorted out I lived at Boscombe Down in the 1980's and the US F1-11's would visit every few years and at one airshow there in 1990 an Australian F1-11 turned up. Thank you for the video. 👍

Chockfull of honest info you will not find in any US book or video. Not even after so many years. Well done.

I lived in a quaint village nr the RAF base at Finingley nr Doncaster UK. We went to many air shows there when i was a kid which included Vulcan bombers, even the Air France Concord landed and took off from there before its fatal crash. It was the longest runway i believe in the UK. Thanks for the video.

The design of this aircraft looks very good even in this day.. The design of this aircraft looks very good even in this day..

Used to see F111s flying at NOE FLs over our place west of Red Bluff, Ca. They'd come in to MacLellan AFB in Sacramento for rebuilds and they'd take them out over the ocean for engine testing. Afterwards, they'd head into the Sacramento Valley and test the TFR over the west side of the valley. Their path took them right over our cabin.

In the early 70s, I was stationed at Norton Afb CA. We were sent TDY on a classified mission. About an hour later, we landed at Nellis AFB NV. We still didn’t know what our mission was, but that night, on the news, they told everyone why we were there. We we transporting all the equipment to Nam to support a FB-111 squadron. About a month later, the fighters were returned due to losses. While the terrain following system worked well, it would not pick up the steel cables the North hung in the valleys. Hitting those cables would destroy the fighters.

I worked in Wing QC at Canon AFB, NM in 1977/78. We had the D model and I remember them being grounded for months due to engine issues. I also remember the day the SOF took one out for recert after a hard landing and the main landing gear busted in half as he turned to taxi out to the runway. We were watching from QC and initially thought he had cut the corner too tight and gone off the runway. Others may love it, but after reading a number of the incident reports and having to type up a few of them, I was never impressed. Personally I think Robert McNamara's "brilliant idea" of having a single fighter design shared by both the USAF and USN was a huge cause of the aircraft's problems.

Lived near an airbase in NZ. An F111 took off in the wet and a huge puddle extinguished the jets so they ejected. A write off. They had to use explosives to dismantle it!

Glad I saw this before I watched the full first video, lol. Great stuff thanks.

I worked all models as an Avionics tech at Depot level maintenance. It was at McClellan AFB in Sacramento, California. I remember the day I went in and we were told to stop work as we were going to put a bunch of them on flatbed trucks and haul them away. Millions of dollars of "AMP" (avionics modernization program)mod parts were just packed up and shipped off. Removed a couple Nuclear boxes from the "FB" models renamed them a "G" model and gave them to the Aussie's.

The random changes from Australian to American accent in the voice over is driving me nuts!

I used to work on the F-111As, EF-111s and FB-111As. NY, NH and RAF Upper Heyford in England. I worked on the TFR, ARS, nav and bomb computer system, doppler and hud systems. We used to heat up our lunch in the radome with the ARS Known as the Aardvark.

Anyone else notice that the narration bounces back and forth between an Australian and American accent, sometimes mid sentence? Is this VO a text-to-speech generated voice?

When I worked at British Aerospace decades ago, they tested major components to destruction. They then replaced the failed item with another one and tested this in the same way. In time they could determine the average life span of each major assembly and tell the customers when to replace the items before they failed. I think the production attitudes between Britain and America can account for quality issues. In America, it is speed of production whereas in Britain it is quality and reliability first, even though it sometimes means that entry into service takes longer.

Awesome vid 😮🤠🤟🇬🇧

I loved the F-111, I remember being on the range safety crew for their bombing runs. it was beautiful to watch them do run after run, dropping all sorts of bombs, but the best was their toss bombs 500KG each.

I also worked as a USAF Pneudraulic mechanic/Jet mech/General airframe mech. We had to push up on the stabilizers with power off to see if they would droop. If so we had to ground them. Rigging the swept wind was a first class pain in the azz... back in the 80's BTW one problem they had with TFR was pilots grabbing the stick because they didn't trust it. They would crash when the box would have saved them.

Back in the late 2000s, I once played poker with an Air Force veteran who flew a F-105 Thunderchief during the Vietnam War. He was a bit of crazy rec player who bluffed too much.

I worked the aerospace manufacturing facility which fabricated and tested the attenuation bag on the crew-ejection module. For ‘feet-wet’ landings, we also manufactured the self-righting system which would protect the crew from drowning in an upside down module.

I saw one of these on display at a military hospital. Unlike other commentors, i was surprised at how small it is. But i think that's just because of how big it appeared in pictures and models compared to other aircraft i had previously seen in person. For example, it looks nearly twice as big as the F4 phantom 2 in pictures and models. But in person it only looks taller and maybe a tad bit longer. Of course, never seen the two next to one and other but months apart, that's the impression i got. Then again, the F4 is a pretty large fighter jet. If you are not used to seeing 4th gen fighters in person, then this thing will be a shock to you like most others. Basically, full size 4th gen fighters are the size of ww2 bombers. F14, F15, F4 etc.

Still my fav aircraft design!!

The entire center carry-thru section or wing box was D6AC steel. Every fastener, and there were hundreds of them were taper locks. That meant every hole was tapered and had to be hand fitted, thus tapered reamers and bolts, or taperlocks.

Was travelling around OZ with my ex wife in a caravan and there was an airshow at Proserpine and seating was hay-bales. This would've been about July '88. There was a demo by an F111 which was massively impressive. Like an Arrow-head. At lunchtime we could queue up and climb the ladder and look in the cockpit. I tried to talk the driver into accidentally going supersonic but he said it wouldn't be worth his life. We all sat on hay-bales and watched a Grumman Goose or Mallard which was a beautiful aircraft, a demo of a Chinook abseiling troops which was eerily fantastic, like watching an insect deposit eggs on the surface of a creek. There was a Spitfire and also a great demo by a large Agusta helicopter owned by a mining company, then at the end of the day when all of the housekeeping etc was being done someone got on the sound system and thanked the Ladies Auxilliary for the Tea, Sandwiches and Lamingtons and we all went home. One of the most memorable airshows ever. Golden days gone by. All the best from NZ.

Interesting that this article does not mention the pilot's control of the sweep wing feature. Initially, the control lever, obviously from a geek engineer, had the control lever moved to the forward position; moving the wings aft as this was the "go faster" position rather than the actual relation of the wings forward to the front and back to the rearward position. This cost at least one aircraft and crew before it was reversed...

I grew up in Rosewood near Amberley. The sound of the F-111's flying over the town will always stay with me. The F-111 is proof that pigs can fly.

I spent 8.5 years working on RAAF F111’s Aircraft technician

We should have never scrapped the TSR2 in favour of this . Thank you wilson

This was one of the three aircraft for my job classification, F-111, F-16 and F-15A-D. Fortunately I only had to work on one of those pigs once. There was hydraulic oil and engine oil dripping from everywhere.

The all moving horizontal tailplanes also suffered from fatigue after a bunch of terrain followin g missions.

Picture captioned F105 Thunderchief is another shot of F100 SuoerSabre

I remember being in the air cadets and spending a weekend in Siberia, what they called the tents on Amberely base in winter. Ice on the inside in the mornings. Worth it for the flight in the Chinook. An experience to remember, 40 years ago. Even better, sitting in the cockpit of a pig on the tarmac. Strictly no photo's allowed sadly. We were meant to experience a Hercules flight, but some genius put a Mintie, the chewy lolly, in the intake of a Skyhawk on the walk around. Grounded everyone.

Loved the F-111C, my favourite jet in the RAAF inventory. Last operational RAAF F-111's were G's purchased exUSAF weren't they? Lower flight hours and upgraded electronics. Had the C model wing extensions added to them once they got here IIRC

I worked in the tower at Mtn Home 80-85, F-111As, the weakest oldest airframes and engines. We had SOF's (Supervisor of Flying) in the tower with us, I've always been inquisitive and they supplied me with answers. It was good to have a great relationship with the sof's, they were pilots. Once I heard all about them, I thought they were the greatest AF plane ever. Nothings proved me wrong yet. They were smokin fast, a friend in radar at Eglin afb saw 111's being chased by F-15s out over the ocean, he was shocked the see the 111's pull away rapidly. I asked some sofs, they all said ya, from 400 kts on up they could out accel even 15's. And then theres the thing about max speed. No one knows, as long as you want to pour fuel into the engines in burners, it would keep accelerating. And they were accurate for old jets. The old a models were plus or minus 12 feet.

Was winter camping in the upper Blackwater River valley, WV, in the early 90s and two F-111's came screaming over the valley, wings spread, no more than a few hundred feet over head, if that. Startled the crap out of us early in the morning when we were just waking up and getting moving in the cold, snowy winter (you get up and get moving winter camping because, well, it's COLD). As a boat and plane nerd, I told my friends those were F-111s and they asked how I knew. I told them was the only plane it could be with those wings spread out. Nothing else like it and was an impressive spectacle. Not the kind of flying for amateurs. This would have been shortly after the first gulf war. It's no secret around here that they use the Blackwater Canyon for practicing mountain valley runs and a local Guard pilot I know said WV has such a great topography to train and do "nap of the earth" (detection avoidance) training. Our F-111 spotting was post first Gulf War and another pilot told me they use the high elevation valleys of WV to approximate the terrain of many countries in Europe and the Middle East. A lot of training for Afghanistan apparently happened in the mountains of VA and WV. Which makes since as the military has used this area for training since before WWI. They trained soldiers around Seneca Rocks for high mountain operations in WWI because of similarities to Italy. We still see F-15s soar through the Blackwater Valley on a regular basis and there are fixed wing Guard facilities at Camp Dawson in Preston County and also in Mercer County, WV and Charleston and Bridgeport, WV. They embrace military aviation here for the support jobs they bring. I just enjoy it being a nerd. Lol.

There was a newspaper cartoon (Melbourne Sun) showing an RAAF mechanic painting a series of dashes where the wing joins the fuselage, with him explaining to someone “well, toilet paper never tears along the dotted line”

Great video

I just bought a car from a guy who was a F-111 mechanic. Crazy coincidence because I'm trying to get my foot in the door as a A&P apprentice somewhere.

I cut up the last F111 test wing at (then )DSTO in Melbourne around 2007 whilst working there on contract with the F 18 centre barrel fatigue testing . They wanted it cut into precise rectangular panels in between the stringers for further anaysis in Holland -uising a circular saw and copious amounts of kerosine lubricant ( DSTO's own chap refused to do it after getting a 'kickback ' but then he didn't do much else either .... ) Also made a planform silhouette of an F111 out of F111 for presentation to the retiring 'big chief' CDS =chief defence scientist .

old aardvark.. ;-) Nice vid 🙂

Don't know about the F 111 but the F 14 had a huge aluminum forging with giant pivot pins that held the wings.

Extremely iconic bird

Side comment / observation: At the 8:20 mark you can see three Mercury astronauts: Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper and Scott Carpenter.

Yes send loads of information about us and where we are! Has no one seen Independence Day!

Ayyyyy I’m at Nellis :)

One of my favorite aircraft

There was another "flaw" or "feature" of the F-111. The ejection pod would allow the pod to eject when the plane was inverted and close to the ground. The two pilots were still in the pod when it hit the ground at Nellis, killing them on impact.

Ahoi, F-111 experts. Can you briefly explain me what are those triangular mobile parts on the "frontal root" of the wings? In this video I didn't see them, so I can't point to them, but I saw them only when the wings are fully extended, for example during take-offs. They look like small canards, but maybe they simply have flap-like function. From other video where I see the wings movement I don't think they are required to move to let the wings extend fully, so I think it's not a "forced" moving part due to the "wing bulk". Thanks in advance.

Just to let everyone know, the Navy F111 was scrapped and replaced by the F14 Tomcat…. They had a need for speed!

I always loved the Ardvark

Crazy that losing 77 planes is considered an excellent safety record. Yikes. Brave pilots.

Back in the mid 60s I was in the (UK) Air Training Corps and on one Easter week at an RAF base we were given a talk by a salesman from GD - the British government were considering buying F111s. Bear in mind we were a bunch of snot nosed 15 years olds who thought we knew it all so, after the salesman had extolled the virtues of their plane we weighed in with the questions: Had they been influenced by the Barnes Wallis' Swallow design? "We think that Professor Wallis' (professor??) design had great merit but it relied upon a single pivot point for both wings. GD think that their H shaped unit with two pivot points is a much better option" Were the planes going to have British Martin-Baker ejectors seats (the Luftwaffe were losing lots of pilots when they couldn't eject from crashing F104s - the plane they called the Erdnagel - tent peg!)? "The F111 is fitted with an escape pod that will not only bring the crew safely to earth but also keep them together once they land" Are you worried that the explosive bolts might fire prematurely and detach the pod by accident? "No, the system is perfectly safe" What is the fire rate of the Gatling gun? "I couldn't possibly tell you that." (voice from the back of the room 4,500 rounds per minute!" You had to feel sorry for the poor man. The subsequent Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly due to wing failure of one aircraft and the ejection of the pod from an otherwise healthy aeroplane (over the Arizona desert?) of another possibly influenced the UK government not to buy it - along with the fact that we couldn't afford it anyway.

The narrator needs to pick an accent and then stick with it. Please.

Please note other U2 pilots reported seeing SAM being shot at them. You may want to check your docs on this point. Hence the USAF brass had to know that is was just a matter of time before one would hit. Richard Brown

Iconic icons of Iconry

Looks like Alan Shepard and Gordon Cooper in the photo at 8:18.

A friend of mine who used to maintain aircraft in the RAAF mentioned an incident with an Australian F111 where the terrain-following radar could not detect water so the aircraft crashed into the sea. And another one where they did a fuel dump with afterburners lit and gear down to provide a spectacle for some special occasion and ended up burning the electronics in the landing gear bays. It's been a while, maybe I got the details wrong.

7:40 compared to the wing pivots on the Tomcats this looks absolutely flimsy. The pivots on the Tomcat are more than one inch thick.

It became a truly great plane.

Glad I got to see the Aussies at Red Flag Vegas at one point with their F-111s.

I believe their is one squadron in the RAAF that still uses the F-111 as a recon plane but I may be mistaken. There are other variants such as the EF-111 Raven which may or may not be used still but i'm not sure. Also the F-111 Aardvark was the most successful aircraft in operation desert storm with the most kills of any aircraft in the operation.

Wonder how the TSR2 would have faired given half a chance.

It was a supersonic bomber. The swept wing was unneeded and the terrain following radar and navigation needed far more advanced avionics then was then available. As a Electronics Jamming vechicle it really found a important niche.

Actually met a guy that crashed two of these, now that's another special flaw i reckon.

[Thumbnail]: Gee, I didn't know an airplane could dab!

Narrators accent varies between American and Australian