Pigs still sizzle 30 years on

Thirty years since it came into service, the F-111 has lost none of its grace and power.

The flexibility of the F-111 makes it just as an important part of the Air Force’s capability today as when it first came into service, Tony Underwood reports

ON its pearl (30th) anniversary of service with the Royal Australian Air Force, the aircraft fondly referred to as Pigs are enjoying a resurgence of capability with a much broader duty statement than anyone dreamt of when they were first acquired.

Rather than allowing them to lapse into obsolescence from their early role of dropping iron bombs, they have been progressively upgraded to make them what they are today – truly multi-role aircraft.

Like other big-ticket Defence items, they were dubbed controversial before they arrived because of escalating costs and problems which delayed their delivery. The much-admired F4 Phantoms were an interim operational bridge between the Canberras and the F-111s.

The F-111s – particularly the RF-111 reconnaissance variant – have considerable intelligence-gathering potential, with much stealth and surveillance capabilities.

And, with their range, performance, generous lifting capacity and new weapons now at their disposal – laser-guided bombs, harpoons and soon the AGM-142 bunker-busting missiles – they can deliver a knockout punch in conditions which would defeat lesser aircraft.

The Air Force currently has a fleet of 35.

Officer Commanding No. 82 Wing Group Captain Kim Osley has been associated with F-111s for about 21 of their 30 years of service.

“When I got on the aircraft it was a Cold War bomber,” he said. “We were going to use this aircraft at night, go in low and hit targets. We were really only here as an emergency insurance policy – in case of an attack on Australia, break glass, get out the F-111s.”

GPCAPT Osley said what the F-111 could do much better than any fighter or any other strike aircraft in the world, was to “go much further”.

“It essentially has the same range as a C-130. Everyone says: ‘That’s a long-range aeroplane.’ Well the F-111 can go at 50 per cent higher speed over the same distance – almost 3000 nautical miles – than a C-130 can.

“It can operate, therefore, without air-refuelling over a radius of action of 800 to 1000 nm.

“The ability to fly precision strike missions without any external support aircraft, drop a bomb with pinpoint accuracy in all weather, is something still unique to the F-111.”

Range is not the only feature of the F-111s.

“Apart from its range and ability to loiter for a long time, it now has the flexibility well beyond delivering iron bombs which were what were in use when it was first produced,” GPCAPT Osley said.

Apart from replacement of analogue systems with digital and Pavetack and Harpoon conversions, access to later-model F-111s has enabled the Air Force to upgrade some of the fleet to the specifications of the more potent F-111Gs.

“In terms of flexibility, if you wanted to carry a Holden Commodore under the wing, you could probably put two D-lugs in the back of it and bolt it under the wing and it would carry it,” GPCAPT Osley said.

One large weapon due to be added to the F-111 armoury is the precision bunker-buster, the AGM-142 Have Nap or Popeye missile, which is 4.83m long and weighs 1383kg.

“There would not be a weapon developed in the world that the F-111 can’t carry because it has the size and the flexibility to be able to do that,” GPCAPT Osley said.

Boeing Australia, the contractors at Amberley, announced on May 7 that the company had conducted a successful simulated launch and operation of the missile. It is scheduled to be introduced into service in late 2004.

And another project under way at Amberley, with contractor Qantas Defence Services and sub-contractor Honeywell, will provide the F-111s with a new electronic warfare “eyes” which will provide greater protection in high threat environments.

The strike capability of the Royal Australian Air Force’s F-111s has never been used in anger – possibly, in part, because of their deterrent value – but the aircraft has an impressive operational record with the US Air Force.

USAF F-111s launched from the UK struck a stunning blow on Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya in April 1986 to head off what was described as state-sponsored terrorism under President Gaddafi.

“It first flew in 1964 and really didn’t enter service until 1968 when it went to Vietnam and then it had a few problems and obviously we didn’t get it until 1973,” GPCAPT Osley said.

“The second time it went to Vietnam in Operation Linebacker II in the period 1972-73, it performed better than any other combat aircraft – great bombing accuracy, lower loss rate and achieved great things.

“People also seem to have forgotten that, in the first Gulf War, it actually destroyed more tanks than any other aircraft in the USAF inventory.”

He said the cost of maintaining and operating the aircraft was “not astronomical” on the “bang for bucks” scale of capability for capital outlay.

“There are 33,000 parts in an F-111 and we have to go through line item by line item and we had a large team here at Amberley doing it. We had lots of people in Canberra looking at that and we went through and eventually found locations to get all those parts,” he said.

Australia is able to access parts from the 400 serviceable F-111s that the US has stored at its Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center in Tucson, Arizona.

In terms of airframes and engines, Australia probably has access to sufficient spares to continue operating two squadrons of F-111s beyond the end of this century if the Government chose to do so .

“When we bought the F-111Gs we needed to identify a date beyond which we definitely won’t have them and we identified 2020 as the year beyond which we are definitely not going to operate them,” GPCAPT Osley said.

“That doesn’t preclude us from, at any point in time, stating that it’s not cost-effective to keep the capability going. I’ve been around 21 years and every two or three years – rightfully so – the Government or the Department or Defence will look at the F-111 and say: ‘Is this really a capability that’s still relevant and cost-effective?’ and they’ll go though the sums. And, if it isn’t, I expect they’ll be retired at that point.”

Despite the sophistication of the F-111, GPCAPT Osley says current serviceability is good.

“We had some technical problems last year when we had some wiring problems .. [and] we had a wing-fatigue issue,” he said.

“But we’ve fixed that now and the fleet is looking very good as far as supportability goes.”

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