USAF United States Air Force F-111 GAV 4026-383
The F-111 was a multipurpose tactical fighter bomber capable of supersonic speeds. The aircraft was one of the more controversial aircraft ever to fly, yet it achieved one of the safest operational records of any aircraft in USAF history and became a highly effective all-weather interdiction aircraft. As a result of a poorly thought-out development specification, both the Navy and Air Force had become committed, much against their will, to a civilian-inspired "Tactical Fighter Experimental" (TFX) program. This called for developing a single aircraft-the F-111-to fulfill a Navy fleet-defense interceptor requirement and an Air Force supersonic strike aircraft requirement. In retrospect, this was impossible to achieve, especially since planners placed priority upon the Air Force requirement, and then tried to tailor this heavy landplane to the constraints of carrier-based naval operations. The naval aircraft, the F-111B, was never placed in production. The Air Force aircraft, which was produced in a variety of models, including the F-111A, F-11D, F-11E, and F-11F, as well as an FB-111A strategic bomber version, had numerous problems, and only the F-111F actually fulfilled the original TFX design specification. This was less the fault of General Dynamics than of the civilian planners in the Pentagon whose "cost effective" inclinations ironically produced the major aeronautical fiasco of the 1960s-and a costly one at that. The early F-111As had extremely bad engine problems, suffering from compressor surge and stalls. NASA pilots and engineers wrung out the airplane in an attempt to solve its problems, studying the engine inlet dynamics of the plane to determine the nature of inlet pressure fluctuations that led to compressor surge and stall. Eventually, as a result of NASA, Air Force, and General Dynamics studies, the engine problems were solved by a major inlet redesign. The F-111 could operate from tree-top level to altitudes above 60,000 feet (18,200 meters). The F
Size: 5335px × 3601px
Location: RAF Fairford, England. United Kingdom.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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