For the bulk of the Cold War, the F-111 Aardvark served as the U.S. Air Force’s premier strike aircraft. From Vietnam onward, it participated in almost all wars until it was replaced by the F-15E Strike Eagle. It also performed a limited number of missions as a strategic bomber for Strategic Air Command. One of the first joint service aircraft, the F-111 was designed to meet the needs of the U.S. Air Force for a swing Wing strike bomber and the U.S. Navy for a long-range interceptor.
Two strong but fuel-efficient TF-30 turbofan engines with revolutionary afterburner technology were the core of the F-111’s construction. The fuselage can hold fuel for sorties up to 2500 miles in length and bomb payload weighing up to 31,000 pounds. with an additional thousand miles added by external tanks. The enormous aircraft weighed more than twice as much loaded as it did empty, at 20 tons. The F-111’s designers had a difficult task on their hands: they had to create an aircraft that could fly at very high speeds and still take off or land on a short runway.
Smaller wings would reduce drag, allowing an aircraft to travel quicker, but they would also reduce lift, forcing an aircraft to fly faster before takeoff, necessitating a longer runway. For instance, the F-105 Thunderchief, the other supersonic fighter bomber of the time, had extremely short wings and needed airstrips over a mile long for takeoff, which limited the number of airfields it could fly from.
Designers of the F-111 used a cutting-edge technique known as variable geometry or swing wings. These allowed the wings to create the most lift during takeoff and would tuck inward during mid-flight to reach higher speeds. The technology was initially utilized in the F-111, one of the numerous significant designs. The two-man crew was seated side by side in a cockpit pod. When they wanted to leave, a rocket lifted the pod into the air, and it subsequently descended to the surface on a parachute, much like a space capsule.
The pioneering new terrain-following radar on the F-111, which recorded the landscape directly in front of the aircraft and then automatically changed the flight path to prevent a collision, was a significant innovation. This made it possible for F-111s to fly at low altitudes of as little as 200 feet above the ground and at high speeds without crashing, even at night or in severe weather. The F-111 was given the nickname “Aardvark” because of its prowess in the dark and while hunting. F-111s did demonstrate some potential, being capable of exceeding Mach 1.2 at low altitudes or more than double that. While flying at a high altitude at Mach 2.5, the landing strip only has to be 2,000 feet long.
It was the first tactical aircraft from the United States to fly over Europe without refueling in the middle of the flight. However, because the F-111’s design was oriented toward meeting Air Force requirements, the carrier-based Interceptor variant of the F-111B struggled in tests to go faster than Mach 1. Everyone lost out financially as the costly force compromise that was the naval version was finally abandoned. However, many of the F-111B’s more promising design features were carried over to the F-14 Tomcat.
F-111s took part in Operation Desert Storm during the 1991 Gulf War. More successfully than any other U.S. strike aircraft employed in the operation, F-111Fs accomplished 3.2 successful strike sorties for every unsuccessful one during Desert Storm.
Nearly 80% of the laser-guided bombs used in the battle were dropped by the squadron of 66 F-111Fs, including the penetrating GBU-28 bunker-buster. More least 1500 Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles were said to have been destroyed by F-111 aircraft, whose anti-armor mission was known as “tank blinking.”
The Australian Air Force used the F-111 until 2010, during which time it earned the nickname “the pig.” After receiving a batch of 24 F-111Cs in 1973, the Australians went on to purchase an additional 15 FB-111s and four F-111As. The F-111s gave Australia the ability to project military force across the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean, increasing its diplomatic clout even if they were never employed in actual conflict. Pigs were the pride of Australian airshows, where they commonly performed the “dump and burn” maneuver, in which fuel was thrown out the back and ignited with the afterburners.
Combat over Syria, Chechnya, Libya, Afghanistan, and Ukraine has seen active employment of them. A Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24 attacking Syrian rebels in 2015, sparking a significant diplomatic controversy.
There were 563 total F-111s produced; following the F-111A, the F-111D and E models improved the Aardvark electronics and engine inlets and boosted engine thrust. A different model, the FB-11, had upgraded engines and was two feet long to carry more fuel. 75 of these aircraft were used by strategic Air Command troops.
The F-111C, which was only offered to Australia, combined design features from the FB-11 and the F-111E. The final F-111F featured updated radar, engines with 35% greater performance, and a paved attack infrared targeting pod that let the crew locate targets on the ground and hit them with precision-guided explosives. At a cost of $1.5 billion, 42 F-111 were transformed into unarmed EF-111A Raven electronic jamming platforms beginning in the middle of the 1970s. The essential component of the EF-111 was an ALQ-99E jamming pod, which sent out radiation that rendered nearby radars inoperable and allowed entire formations of aircraft to fly by undetected in its wake.
The Raven was known to its pilots as the “Spark-Vark” because when the Jammer was active, it’s current literally made the hairs on their heads stand as it crackled through the aircraft. The EF-111 may be distinguished by the receiver pod on the tail fin. Between 1967 and 1998, the F-111 served the USAF in operational roles. Prior to being converted to the F-111G and handed to air combat command, the FB-111s were operated by Strategic Air Command from 1969 until their retirement in 1993.