F-111 Aardvark, The Aircraft that Defined an Era 

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Technically any aircraft that crashes on land is a "groundbreaking aircraft"

My uncle was one of the engineers sent from Australia to help (in his words) keep the wings on the F-111, as he specialised in stress and fatigue in air craft.

As a kid I would build tester models. The F-111A was my third model I ever built. I would hang them from my ceiling with fishing line. The wings moved. I had it dogfighting mig 17-F. Not exactly historical I don't think. I must have built 50 blackbird modles. I stuffed 3 E rocket engines in a larger model and it actually flew. The sight of this jet brought back so many memories.

I was working just outside of Darwin, Australia one day and I looked up and one of these flew over my head at about a few hundred meters altitude, backwards, at about 50 knots or so. It was hanging off of the bottom of a helicopter on its way to an aircraft museum. One of the strangest things I've ever seen.

That ejection system was astounding!

"Suffered less losses" because Texas Instruments delivered the FLEER scanner system. My Father worked on its development. I got to see the unit on a shake table when I was 12. Father-Son Day only came once a year. Christmas, Fourth of July, my birthday...... they all fell short to what went on there. I would not miss that day. I saw a piece of glass the size of a tennis ball that would cost a million dollars. One of 12 lenses spinning at 20,000 RPM to read the elevation related to forward location at 600 MPH, 50 feet off the ground! THIS system on the F111 was a prototype eventually ending up as the guidance system for the Cruise Missile !

Note that even though the F-111 was retired in USAF service 1996 and the EF-111 in 1998, The Royal Australian Air Force retired them in 2010!

I remember these from an airshow in Sydney's west in the early 1980s. I watched it fly silently overhead at tremendous speed, followed a few seconds later by the most insanely loud crack and thunder. Earlier that day I met and shook hands with Chuck Yeager (retired). What an amazing day for a kid.

Shuttle astronaut Mike Mullane survived an ejection from an F-111 earlier in his career. He called that his "first" rocket ride.

I worked in-shop avionics on SAC's FB-111A fighter/bombers. I loved working on the Inertial Navigation system and Terrain Following RADAR systems. The FB-111A also had the Astrotracker, which tied in with the doppler RADAR and Inertial systems. That system would lock onto a star for navigation. The FB's had the longer wings and updated avionics, and regularly won SAC's Bomb-Nav competitions. These were only at 2 bases in the US - Plattsburgh in upstate (*way* upstate!) NY, and Pease in New Hampshire. Amazingly, I am watching this video the day after we returned from an F-111 reunion in Layton, Utah where we had around 200 of the folks that flew or maintained these aircraft, getting together with people that we may not have seen for the past 45 years!

In Brisbane Australia, every year our city festival would have a couple of F-111s from Amberley squadron do a dump and burn over the river, truly impressive - and deafening - to watch. As a kid, less than 200m from it, and feeling the heat and wash is something I'll never forget. The squadron kept a couple around for years after the rest had been grounded and decommissioned, just for the festival.

Five of my eight years in the USAF were involved with the F111F at Mtn Home AFB, and the F111A in Thailand and Nellis AFB. As an avionics technician I was thrilled that the electronics were cutting edge at the time, but our shop kept very busy with repairs to the Line Replaceable Units and the actual test stations and central computer that ran them. This was before the age of disk drives of course, and we loaded punch tapes into the central computer which ran the tests on the LRUs at the test stations that the central computer controlled. My last three years were spent supporting the new (at the time) F15A. My USAF experience led to a career in electronics, troubleshooting and repair, training, technical writing. Can't say I owe it all to the F111, but it sure was an exciting way to kick off my career.

Fun fact, the EF-111 Raven actually has a single air to air kill credited to it. An Iraqi Mirage F-1 tried to intercept an EF-111 during Desert Storm at low level, and ended up crashing into the desert during the high speed chase. The Raven crew, Captain James Denton and Captain Brent Brandon were credited with a maneuver kill as a result.

I always had a soft spot for the F-111... In Australia you'd see them all the time at major Race shows (like Formula-1) where they'd do a flyby with their famous Dump and Burn. I vividly remember the 1985 Adelaide F1 Grand Prix (the first Adelaide Grand Prix being in 1984). It was a cool & cloudy day. The F-111's did their flyby with dump and burn & even from 200m above us, you could feel the heat from the flamage - a most welcoming warmth on such a chilly day!

Always find it so crazy how all these plane designs look basically brand new even though a lot of them are over 50 years old. Wild.

My father (Ben Toney) spent his entire career working on the F-111 program. He retired as the F-111 Program Directory. Towards the end of his career the USAF had retired their fleet, and he spent a lot of time supporting the RAAF. It was a beautiful aircraft.

The F-111 still has the coolest pilot ejection system of any aircraft. I think the original B-1 bomber started off with this type of injection system but they opted out for a more traditional type like the B-58 had.

I can still remember watching two of those Jets fly from north to south the entire distance of Panamint Valley in California. When I picked up my field glasses, I was overjoyed to watch them playing tag with one another, the one pushing out in front slowly, opening the wings and slowing down while the one in back folded the wings and sped up and they were doing this down the whole valley. Of course I don’t think anyone was around for 20 miles just me doing my prospecting. I’m guessing this might’ve been 40 years ago but I really can’t remember anymore. I think I was about 2000 feet elevation, and the jets were almost even. Thinking back now, I tracked them for about 10-15 miles before they disappeared into the forbidden zone, and they were on the other side, into the Slate Range, not on the west facing range nearest Briggs cabin.

Reading all the comments you can see how much loved the f111 was in Australia. I was good friends with a pilot out of Amberly and was told that the "pig" came from its unusual cockpit and nose design that resembled a pig snout. The planes were bought by the RAAF due to the unrest in Indonesia at the time hence why they had a different configuration to the US versions. Not to dog fight but to be a ultra fast long range bomber. Last i saw one was in 2007 off the Kangaroo Point cliffs at the Brisbane Riverfire festival. The pilots came in so low i could look straight across at them in the cockbit. Then they lit up the afterburner and everything was orange and you could feel the heat. Then proceeded at a steep climb over the story bridge and this thing then took off like a bat out of hell heading for space. I will never forget it.

Built in my hometown, Fort Worth. During WW2 the Plant built B-24s. From the B-36 through the F-111, and finally the F-16,... and with a SAC base and Naval Reserve Base next door to the Plant, us kids in the 50's-80's Fort Worth got daily air shows with all kinds of aircraft.

Look up Dr. Jo Dean Morrow and his 9 PhD's groundbreaking research into strain based metal fatigue. He won a Naval contract to find out why the Titanium swing-wing joints had failed... gruesomely to both the flight crews and the wreckage. High speed wing snaps at 100ft leaves little intact.... here's to Dr. Jo-Dean and his favorite pin-ball machine.....his team are heros in the world of proper fatigue resistant design. Oh and a tip of the fedora to Herb Anderson of MTS for designing and building the axial servo hydraulics....you kids, study why this technology came about... blended technologies just like the MAKO knee replacement.....When faced with a problem, look outside 'your industry's technical box'.

As a little kid on Fraser island, 2 F1/11s silently flew over our heads at Mach 8 [it seemed]. Few seconds later the sound wave knocked us over! We were just little ofc.

The Pig... I used to love watching these things fly out of Townsville as a kid.

Thanks for this video. My dad was a flight test engineer on the F-111 at Edwards AFB in the late 60’s. Always love learning more about what he worked on.

My Dad worked for General Dynamics and did landing gear stress analysis on that airplane. Thank you for the video!

I saw one of these take off when I was a high school kid back in the 80's at an air show at Ohakea airforce base in NZ. To this day it was straight up the loudest thing my ears have ever been exposed to. You could really feel it too. The F15 was there too. Took off and did a vertical climb with full afterburners until it almost disappeared and then came back down again trailing vapours off the wing tips into an almost supersonic low pass. I'll never forget the F111 though.

At 7:35 I worked on the TF-30 engines from the F-111 while in the Air Force in the mid 70s and worked at the "test cell" for a while where we would run and test the engines after they were repaired. The figure of 18,000 lbs of thrust for the basic engine is correct but 21,000 lbs with the afterburner is not correct. The correct figure is probably declassified but I won't state it here other than to say it was MORE.

I lived near Williamtown RAAF airforce base in NSW Australia as a kid. This was one of the primary bases we flew our F-111's from, so I would regularly see these aircraft flying overhead. They would perform practice runs along the coast and out to sea, so I have seen these aircraft using full afterburners quite a few times, shooting flames out the exhaust as long as the aircraft. Unfortunately due to the contracts we signed with the US government to get hold of them, when the F-111's were retired, the government was forced to destroy them, which they did by burying them, and running bulldozers across them. It was a very sad day to see those aircraft destroyed, permanently ending their era in this country.

I remember fishing at the top end of Fraser Island in Australia and on more than one occasion having the crap frightened out of me by two F-111s as they came ripping up the west coast of the island on a training run, just a football-kick off the deck, pivot side-by-side around the very top of the island, and then rip down the east coast. The skill, sight and noise was incredible. What a show!

Any time I see this stunner I just think of that discussion between Indonesian military higher ups, one of them saying: "The Australians have a bomber that can fly over here and put a bomb right through the window at any moment!" That may be slightly paraphrased, but I think there's some truth to it.

You and Scott Manley should make a video together

From 1987 I worked as a software engineer in Airborne Displays Division of GEC Avionics at Rochester, on the wall above my desk was a poster of an F-111 with "LIBYA" at the top while underneath each letter written vertically were the words "Lakenheath Is Bombing Your Ass" 😉

My favourite story about the Pig from an old mate that used to fly them; apparently dump and burns were very much a big no-no everywhere other than here in Aus, where they were cleared very specifically for only doing it straight and level at certain speeds and altitudes Eventually, they got cleared to do it through the entire flight envelope through the sheer power of the pilots mucking about and setting their fuel on fire. The old mate I was talking to was saying he even used to pulse the dump on and off while flying over his home base's residential area to let his wife know he was home!

Also the highest-scoring tank killer in the Gulf War

I have a soft spot for swing-wing aircraft. The F-111 is no exception. Thank you for covering this aircraft!

My absolute favourite RAAF aircraft. Sad day when they retired. I flew up to Newcastle just to see them in their last ever public performance.

back in the late 90's my family went on a big trip down to the snowy mountains region in NSW australia and on one day we took a day trip to visit one of the underground hydro power stations. While we were milling around outside the tunnel waiting for the shuttle bus a solitary F-111 went racing through the mountain valley. I'd say it was less than 200 meters above ground, and well below the tops of the valleys edges. What a sight and sound! Also i was there for the last ever public dump and burn, performed at the williamtown airshow at RAAF williamtown, only a couple of hours away from where i live

My dad was an avionics engineer on the F-111 Aardvark. I was born on Clovis AFB in Clovis, NM 10-9-1979 while he was a Staff Seargant there. I still think it was so cool he worked on this aircraft, with it's glorious swept-wing configuration!

I worked on these from 84 to 90 at RAF Upper Heyford, I have fond memories of my time with them. And the places we went with them on TDYs.

Thank you for featuring this aircraft. I have watched her fly many many times in my life. I consider her one of the most beautiful aircraft ever built. And when she goes/ SHE GOES. Her specs for speed, ceiling and all else were way beyond anything at the time...and in fact even now an F15 would be hard to match her. She was in the realm of F-22 specs. Gorgeous machine. As Michael Scott might say: "Threat Level Midnight". 8-)

I'm mildly surprised that the fuel dump trick didn't get covered. Granted, this video seemed to be a rather high-level overview, but I would have thought it fascinating enough to include for that reason alone.

When I was in the airforce, I was an avionics technician. I worked in inertial navigation, terrain following radar, communication systems, fire control radar and electronic counter measures I worked the night shift and it wa so cool seeing the F111 take off on, what i belive was, full afterburner with a fire behind the jet as long as the jet itself. It was cool to see that at night. I recall the most frustrating part of the job for me was getting wing glove antennas mounted so they were flush and torqued properly. The rest of the job was changing out system boxes and running mainly canned tests by pushing buttons. I had to exchange an inertial navigation assembly once and was really nervous as it cost 1 million dollars, so the crew chief told me, and 1 million was a lot in 1973. There were some Russian trawlers out in the gulf of Mexico and potus Nixon sent F111s to fly low over the ruskies to harras them. I went out with a work order to repair an F111 and the plane was missing a and they came back a few hours later and the pilots told me they were having a great time blowing the ears out of Ivan. I wasn't happy I was forced to change wing glove antennas because they were partially melted

I worked on these in Filton late 80's. We had the treat of being near the runway and could watch them ground test and then take off back to their base. Lovely power to weight for its day and near vertical after take off was a treat for us to watch.

Thanks, Paul! A very interesting video on a awesome plane.

I thought you would mention the sound of the F111 being recorded on Voyagers Golden Records!

As a medium bomber the F-111 really was unmatched, despite being a failure as a nominal "fighter". It brought a medium range strike capability that really hasn't been filled since it's retirement. Great video.

Nice one - great documentary, nicely researched and presented.

There's nothing like seeing four F-111s screaming across the sky at treetop height barrelling toward your troop convey. I can still see it, and yes they were in a hurry because they punched the sound barrier. It was wild. Glad they wete on our side.

Worked the airplane from 1975 to 1993, all around the world. Safest production airplane the USAF has ever had, although we still lost a few aircraft and, unfortunately some 115 pilots and WSO's along the way, all memorialized on "The Rock" memorial near it's last US operational base, Clovis, NM, and an additional memorial at the United States Museum of the Air Force, in Dayton, Ohio. The F-111 was the plane neither the USAF or the Navy really wanted, but it turned out to be the aircraft we needed. After a shaky start in Combat Lancer, it shined in Vietnam, Libya and Desert Storm, and stood alert in England its entire length of service. Desert Storm proved the guided weapon concept through killing more armor than all the other aircraft combined (Highway of Death), stopped the Saddam Hussein Gulf Oil Spill, and took out enough buried command bunkers (GBU-28) to scare the Iraqi government into pulling out of Kuwait. Needless to say, I love the airplane, wish I could see it fly again.

A plane that was iconic for the time period it was developed. The history and aerodynamics of the swing wing are fascinating. It was an intermediate solution that was later rectified in delta plus canard designs and blended-body/leading edge extension designs.

That transition for the sponsor was one of the smoothest I've ever seen.

I was lucky enough to spend some time around these as a cadet here in Australia and they were just awe inspiring to witness

I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath in 1986 when we launched the strike on Libya. I had only been on the flight line a few weeks at that time and it was very interesting indeed. The video mentioned how much of the maintenance budget was used by the F-111s in Desert Storm (I was there too, but with F-15s from Bitburg). That's not surprising since the F-111 was such a pig. Pilots may have loved it, crew chiefs, not so much. I did learn a lot in the 2 years I worked on them though.

I am continually impressed by the information videos you produce. Nothing short of what I expect from professional broadcast channels. I am a subscriber for at least a year and now that I've retired and can afford it, I'll be a financial supporter as well. Also, LOVE THOSE COOL SHIRTS!

The EF-111 scored a maneuvering kill against a Mirage F-1 in Operation Desert Storm 16:56

During Desert Storm on the first night of the War. Two FB-111, not from our base one had an IFE (In flight emergency) A 500 lb GBU didn't disengage and was hanging. The pilot landed without incident, but the FB-111 had holes from Anti Aircraft weapons. It was a cool Bomber....I served during the 80's and 90's. Loved every minute! And Please thank a troop in uniform, it makes a difference, we are humble, but really appreciate it....

I'll never forget ar the age of 11 or 12 an Aussie F-111A pulling a left hand turn over my house an punching the thrust while doing a dump and burn. Amazing! The ground shook, the windows rattled and i think it loosened a couple tooth fillings. Damn impressive. ❤️

This is the BEST video I have seen on the 'Vark. I knew it was condemned by the Navy (the F-14 Tomcat was so named because of the comment by Tom Connelly that "there's not enough thrust in all of Christiandom to make this a fighter"- the Navy pilots bestowed "Tomcat" upon it for that reason). Indeed, I have read multiple reports that the USAF AND the RAAF considered the 'Vark to be one of the best military aircraft of all time. Thanks for this video.

Most underrated aircraft of the 20th century.

I was stationed at Nellis AFB, Nevada with the 474th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) from July 1976 until August 1977. I had the privilege of watching the last of the 474th's Aardvarks line up on the runway, light the afterburners, and trundle down the strip to fly off into the sunset. It was a wonderful thing to watch since, in the year I'd been there, they'd proven to be maintenance hogs! I learned that the TF-30 engines were WAAAAAY too finicky and more than one aircraft had to abort missions because of them. And, of course, the wing pivots were a maintenance nightmare as well. But the lessons learned led to the F-14 (STILL powered by TF-30s in "the old days") and the BONE, the latter of which is STILL in service. But I might offer a different insight into how the Aardvark acquired it moniker. At the time, a cartoon called "B.C." appeared in the daily newspapers, and it featured an aardvark. Whenever I walked around the different shops in the Avionics Maintenance Squadron, I'd see the aardvark from B.C. depicted with a "bone dome" fighter crew helmet with its ears sticking up through the top of the helmet. Looking at the character's typical configuration, you could see a clear resemblance between the cartoon creature and the aircraft sitting on our flight line. And sit, they did! Our maintenance folks didn't have the parts needed to keep them flying -- though with F-111Ds at Cannon AFB, F-111Fs at Mountain Home AFB, and F-111Es at RAF Upper Heyford in the UK and nothing going on but deterring the Soviet Union from rolling through Western Europe, the As weren't needed as much as they would be once they'd been converted into EF-111As.

Built in flamethrower for defense during dogfights

My uncle was one of the lead GE engineers working on the F111. I was a kid back then but always remember him calling it the fast swine.

Another great example of the importance of materials and engineering of components.

As a former F-111 fighter jock (including RAF Lakenheath), I enjoyed this. Thanks, @CuriousDroid.

So nice to see a video without fake AI imagery. Keep it up, and I'll definitely resubscribe.

was in the 429th ECS and we closed out the last of the f-111 in US service. such a great plane you will be missed

Upper Heyford's E models had the TF-30 engines, with Lakenheath having the 100s. In the dark, LN's afterburners were a sight to behold! By the way, the combination forward landing gear door/speedbrake was recessed on the inside to make room for the landing gear tyres, and was a good place to nestle into for a nap. Also, the rear elevators were good sliding boards.

My dad's final flight (3 hours before the retirement ceremony) was in a 111 flying chase at Edwards for a B-1B. Nice way to close out 29 years.

Thank you for producing a fair video about the F-111. So much said about this aircraft is negative. It truly was remarkable for its time.

Fun fact the F111 could carry the equivalent of 4 Nissan patrols under each wing.

I sat in one of these as a child, tried to start it! Always remember that.

In the early 80s I served with the Royal Observer Corps and we paid a visit to the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath. The yanks showed us all around this impressive aircraft, explaining all about the Pave Tack pod. I remember in the corner of the hangar was a vending machine for what they referred to as ‘Mountain Doo’.

Fantastic, Paul.👍🏻

Paul thank you for that detailed history of the F111, its trials and tribulations, and its successes later in life.

The Aardvark carried 7% more ordnance (with a weapons bay), 50% farther than the F-15EX, which makes me wonder what kind of performance a modern F-111 would have. With basically the same fuselage, but with a modern AESA radar, engines, avionics, some stealth features, and materials, it could end up with the best features of the F-111 and the F-15EX, plus more.

I saw them flying before they retired in Australia.

This was well worth the watch, these used to do a dump & burn for festive occasions, and the cabby I was with dived out of the car and rolled underneath. He had been in Vietnam and had had a close encounter with napalm. Poor bugger. This in Australia.

Surprised no footage of the famous dump and burn was included here!

Very similar to the RAF Tornado MRCA program - Fab video thanks Paul ❤ equally fab shirt! Keep up the fantastic content - much appreciated 👏🏼

As a kid in to jet planes this aircraft was never my favorite, I preferred the more flashy fighters, but I now recognize the F-111 as one of the most underrated warplanes of all time.

Good short doc 😊

You're an excellent writer Curious, love your work!

Love your work, thanks!😊

The F-111 was always one of my absolute favorites! Then it stepped up in my eyes when they made it into a Wild Weasel! I used to play a strategy computer game called Harpoon, which I really liked. The F-111 was the only plane that could penetrate Iran's airspace with relative ease due to its terrain-following radar. It's such a beautiful jet!

I really like the way you present your videos. Very watchable.

Always loved the swing wings. Some were stationed near my home in so cal. I miss them. Just like the f 14s

We used to sit on the porch and watch them practice bombing at the Melrose bombing range. Over the years, we saw two accidents.

I think f111a is one of the few modern aircraft that was awarded a dogfight kill without having any weapon stores

thank you very much for this story

The F-111 was terrain following, and I read that many pilots would iInstinctively try to control the aircraft as it head edtoward a mountain. However, the F-111 would follow the terrain up and down the mountain automatically.

I got to touch an F1 11 at an air show in Adelaide about 30 years ago when I was about 10 years old. My step dad at the time worked at Edinburgh in SA lol I got to sit in a Blackhawk too

Honestly, if it wasn’t for the F-111, we wouldn’t have likely seen the development of the F-14 Tomcat

Truly a Great Plane.

my favorite plane! great video. thanks

When i was a kid in the midd 90's, my grade went on a school camping trip on the South Coast of New South Wales. This was 3 or 4 hours south of Sydney. On the 2nd or 3rd day, as we were all walking down a beach, i very, VERY low flying F-111 roared over our heads. It was following the coast line using its radar or auto pilot avionics or whatever. We were told by the camp operaters that the Australian Air force did the training alone the NSW south coast as it was near their base but also due to how rugged that coast line was? That sound right? Someone correct me. Anyway, it has always stuck with me as a kid. I was blown away to how loud, how fast and how low it was. Pops into my head a few times a year. Very strong memory. :-)

on the escape capsule, the flight control stick, was also able to double as a bilge pump if the landing was on open water

04:13 The aardvark is the african ant eater. I like swing wing designs, the tomcat was always a favourite but I never knew about the F-111.

A truly iconic aircraft. However there were three serious design flaws and these were identified by Ivan Yates at BAC in a design critique. 1. The undercarriage placement meant that the fuselage undersurface couldn't be fully exploited for external payloads. 2. The air intake placement within the boundary layer created serious difficulties and needed constant modifications to the shock cones. 3. The placement of the rear horizontal surfaces was too high on the fuselage and were blinded when the wings were fully swept. The carriage of a 20mm cannon was also superfluous to the role of long range deep interdiction and not necessary.

Beautiful aircraft.