Pig’s fiery performance wins hearts and minds

By PTE John Wellfare

FLTLT Craig Whiting taxis his F-111 past the crowd after performing an air display.

Photo by PTE John Wellfare

MANY visitors to the recent Australian International Air Show were interested in the future of the F-111, according to personnel manning the aircraft’s static display.

No. 6 Squadron Training Flight Commander Squadron Leader Mark Neasmith said the show had been a great opportunity for people to get close to the aircraft and see how formidable it really was.

“The F-111’s got a lot of admirers I guess,” he said. “People come up, with all the press they’ve seen and obviously with the spectacular display it can do at an air show, they love the aircraft and they’d hate to see it retired.”

He said the show had also been a great opportunity to attract new people to the Air Force, with both the flying and static displays receiving a lot of public interest. “We had about 120 targeted recruiting trainees come through on Friday and Saturday [March 18 and 19], and we personally showed them over the aircraft.

“They were obviously very interested in our experiences and how we progressed through the Air Force.

“[Other than the trainees] there’s just a huge mix of people, from young kids with stars in their eyes, wanting to be a pilot, to teenagers still at school, talking about how they go about getting into aviation, to the old guys that come through who have been there and done that, talking about their own experiences.”

6SQN CO Wing Commander Ken Quinn said preparing for the show had been a major undertaking for the squadron, which provided three F-111s, two for aerial displays and one for the static display.

“It’s been a long week, a lot of hard work,” he said.

“The guys and girls led by the [warrant officer engineer], Warrant Officer Wade Godbee, have put in a lot of work to get the aircraft up to speed. “There’s a fair bit of activity going on around the aircraft, so we’ve got to make sure they are kept free of damage and serviceable.

“The squadron got a special note of mention for its static display at the Concours d’Elegance awards, which was an outstanding achievement given the particular aircraft is nearly 40 years old.”

The F-111 aerial display involved a number of low-level passes showing off the aircraft’s speed and manoeuvrability, as well as the infamous dump-andburn.

The F-111 also acted as the mock attack aircraft for the air show’s daily “wall of fire” finale.

Back

.