F-111 Belly Landing

[Hans Tucker]

Looking at YouTube Videos on Equatorial Mounts and stumbled across this. I had seen snippets on the News at the time but not a complete video.

https://youtu.be/KIyYK9oz9Go

[xelasnave]

Brilliant. Thanks you Hans most enjoyable.
Alex

[JohnF]

there is a F111 in the Museum at Evens head, not too far from you Alex.

[xelasnave]

An old school mate lives down there to be close to his plane so it would be a nice day out.
Alex

[acropolite]

Called in to Evans heads while the F111 was being prepared for display, I was amazed at how big the F111 is.

[Dennis]

I was at Amberley when the American B1-B Lancer's flew in and they dwarfed the F-111, quite a sobering sight to see them on the runway together.:)

One of the B1-B's did a low fly over that was awesome.:eyepop:

Cheers

Dennis

[Malewithatail]

Try a Flying fortress from WW2 at 0 feet, with the 4 Rolls 18 cyl rotary engines. The ground shakes.

[The_bluester]

Even an F18 looks like a bus with wings when you get up close to it. I am ex RAAF, didn't work on aircraft but got up close to a few.

The pig (F111) was damn impressive in the air. I used to work on RADAR systems and while at Williamtown we heard that a couple of the pigs were flying down to do a beat up on the airfield. We knew when they were coming (We were working at the RADAR head site where the transmitters were) as we could see primary RADAR paints out over the Pacific, spaced a lot further apart than anything else (They were really belting along) So we went outside to watch one of them belt along the runway at about 50M height then pull up hard, and then the other went in a straight line over the two RADAR units on the base. Wasn't much for it so I turned to my mate (Mid 90's and still mates) and said to him "I think we are dead"

Wow they looked impressive and made some noise.

[FlashDrive]

I arrived at Amberly Airbase in Jan'73 when they first arrived in Australia... 6 arrived first with a lot of pomp and flare ....I was posted to 82Wing Bomber Command, which was disbanded and broken into 2 x Squadrons ...No 1 Squadron and No 6 Squadron.

I went with No 1 Squadron ( as ground support crew ) to Hickham Airbase on the Hawaiian Island in 75', for 3 weeks ( Rimpac'75 War games with the Yanks ). Stopped at Guam Island ( B52 Aircraft Base ) for refueling on the way over.

Best Fighter / Bomber Aircraft IMHO .... !!

Col

[wasyoungonce]

I'll bite...fighter....hahaha meh! But a beautiful Acft I loved working on them....yet the F18 just did everything "better" and "easier". Still it was the best strike weapon we have ever had. Oh that belly landing...they dropped they hook to early it was scraping ground prior to threshold ...could have caught on the concrete (maybe probably not) . I feel the should have lowered it once at the threshold. FWIW.


Hook arresting at night are spectacular...big rooster tail of sparks

[FlashDrive]

Actually it is classed as a Fighter / Bomber

[raymo]

Brendan, If the F18 did everything better and easier, how could the 111 be
the best strike weapon we ever had?:screwy:

Oh! and if you want REAL noise I challenge any body to have experienced more decibels from an aircraft than I did at Farnborough.
A black painted Canberra flying test bed fitted with Olympus engines which gave the aircraft almost triple the power that
it got from the normally fitted Avons passed me on take off at a distance of about 50 metres. By chance it unstuck almost directly opposite me, and as soon as the tail had enough ground clearance, about 6 or 7 metres, it stood on its tail and climbed precisely
vertically, and disappeared int the clouds. The noise made all of my insides vibrate like crazy, and I couldn't see properly because of my eyeballs jumping around.
raymo

[Hans Tucker]

First time I have heard an F18 being referred to as a 'Strike' aircraft .. it was tagged a Multi role Fighter.

[raymo]

Sorry, I know nothing about aircraft much later than the Sopwith Camel
which I did my training on.:D:D
raymo

[wasyoungonce]

Ha fair point...the answer is Range and TFR. The F111 could fly 3 times the radius range + (Jakarta and back on internals, just from Tindal) than that of the F18 and do it at 200ft or lower and faster. Well maybe not fuel burn at Low Level is high


It could fly low to hide from radar then pop up and release then low again and nick off. Pavetack made it a surgical strike weapon. I worked Pavetack and electro optical for some time. Standing next to one or working one them ...was some old tech but everything was beautiful and made to last. Compared the F18....looked like it had a use by date.



The FA18.....range 1/3 the F111 yet the F18 could easily out turn and climb. The F18 also had nighthawk LTDR (I came from pavetack to run nighthawk) .....and the Brick was designed for different purposed and could do them very well.



The M61 was removed from the F111 in later years...after one shot its nose apart. Given it was not a fast turn rate acft it was silly to have this.



I loved the old Mirage and PIG but the F18 killed them all in every metric except grace. My heart lies with the Mirage and PIG.



As for noise hmmm Ive been at the rear end of Mirage & F18 full AB runs but never F111. Most of these F111 was done at test cell into a water dampener. The occasional runs at engine run used to Shake objects off our walls 2Klms away.


My Guess the F111 wins on noise but the low freq noise of the Mirage Turbojet was awesome standing 2 ft from the coal flaps. I did a few F18 twin full AB standing next to the cowls pretty good as well. Maybe that's why my ears have some tinnitus...hahaha

[thunderchildobs]

Some pics

[gary]

Meanwhile in the UK ...



Full story including picture here :-
https://apnews.com/article/europe-148576770b52179f8c13dbded448e27f

[Dennis]

Some FA-18/F Super Hornet pictures.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Hans Tucker]

Meh ... 1SQN. But that is a lot of Super Hornets. Wouldn't see that many F-111's in the air at the same time.

[Outcast]

Navy - 28 years...

We used to work with both the Pigs & the Hornets... Hornet pilots wouldn't fly the profiles we needed to simulate missile defence... The pig jockeys would fly sea skimming profile for us anytime we asked...

Those guys (& girls later) were NUTS!!

We had a pair one exercise come in at very low level pulling rooster tails of sea water behind them... one dipped his wings between our main mast & Air Search Radar whilst the other disappeared below our bow as they shot past...

Frigging NUTS!! However... really down to earth folk for RAAFIES... F18 pilots were Primadonnas by comparison...

Sadly, I was involved with the search for the one that speared in off the coast just off Sydney Heads in the 80's... we didn't find much... :(

I tip me hat to those Pig Jockeys... they had huge balls & they were NUTS!!

[Hans Tucker]

TFR Helped :D

I remember Gulf War 1 in the early 90's. Australian Navy were departing from Fremantle and we had 24 Hour air operations going as they departed. Threw everything at them ... F-111's, F-18 Hornets ... Macchi's

[Outcast]

I would have been on the receiving end at some point, HMAS DARWIN - Damask V, early 1992 enforcing ongoing sanctions against Iraq... we worked up from Sydney to Fremantle...