Tom Clancey called them Varks in Red Storm Rising. They played a very cool role as a very underestimated asset.
This was a case of 100% lucking-out. This was supposed to be a “joint” fighter, showing the silliness of trying to conform an airplane to both runway and carrier requirements.
Turned out to be a pretty good medium AF runway bomber.
Spawned my ‘ride’ — the F-14 Tomcat.
We called F-4s pigs. It ain’t necessarily a bad thing. Used to enjoy watching the swing-wings come in.
The F-111s were stationed at Mountain Home AFB when I was a much younger man. I was on leave from the USAF (not associated with the F-111) and was driving from my hometown in Idaho to visit my grandmother in Bend, OR.
I had a radar detector and was driving a bit over speed for the, at that time, 55 limit on Oregon's highways. All of the sudden the detector went nuts. I lifted off the throttle and realized that there was nothing out there. Nowhere for a cop to hide and no one ahead of or behind me for miles. Then two huge shadows briefly blotted the out sun. It was two MHAFB F-111s about 300' off the deck running their terrain-following radar. That was cool.
Ping
I’ll say this for that bird, night takeoffs with full afterburners were spectacular.
If I were an Air Force pilot, I could be happy flying a C-130, an A-10, or F-111.
I knew an AF pilot who found himself in the “F111 funnel” and immediately volunteered for VietNam as a FAC.
He told me the plane was a classic compromise. It was supersonic, had a 2500+ mile range and could carry more bombs than a B52. Problem - it couldn’t do any two of those at the same time. He was also very skeptical of the terrain following radar.
Side-by-side seating works in cargo aircraft, refuelers, and bombers but is a liability in a fighter airplane.
One of them flew over my car while I was on a bridge a few months ago. Scared the crap out of me.
He went out to investigate and encountered an F-111 crew, one walking, the other hobbling through the woods.
They had left Plattsburgh AFB, New York a short time earlier.
Flying across Vermont, they realized there was a problem. They could only draw fuel from one side of the aircraft and were unable to transfer fuel.
I forget which side was getting lighter, but it doesn't matter.
They were soon to have an aircraft unable to fly. They began to try to find a place to "land" it without damage to anything, and near a road. That area of Vermont has a LOT of real boonies where you might not be found for a long while, if at all.
That part of Kirby is near VT route 2, as good a place as any.
As the plane was on the verge of not being able to remain in the air, they departed in the pod (see other story above).
As luck would have it, they came down over a large evergreen tree, probably a pine or hemlock.
If I recall right, it was the pilot who was scooting as far back in his seat as he could as the pod was impaled on the tree, with it "coming up" between his legs as the limbs were sheared off by the descending pod.
They came to a stop, with the pod hung up in the trees a fair amount above the ground.
As they climbed down the tree(s), one of them fell and injured his ankle.
A Chuck Yeager quote, "If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.
Was at Nellis AFB for years, had a wing of the PIGS. The F-111F was not all that bad. Earlier versions were a death ride. The desert of NV is full of F-111 parts - from all the crashes.
Bookmark
With that kind of load out on the Vark it’s amazing it got off the ground.
Supported the 18 EF-111As of the 390th ECS at Taif, SA.
Loud is an understatement - when they took off in the middle of the night signalling the start of Gulf War. We cheered, bout time it started - we were getting tired of sitting around.
Funny thing - their missions were named after beers : Stroh’s, Pabsts, Michelob, etc. Couldn’t do that now...
They were transitional. It was the beginning of the smart bomb era. The platform did its job, notably striking Kadaffi, but guided bombing was changing daily, leading to the JDAM, which can be dropped from a number of platforms from a distance.
My dad flew
84
86
100
104
Maybe 101 can’t recall
Nearly every private plane and loved his Duke
But his civilian claim to fame was leasing and flying at times himself the Beech Starship
Magnificent but problematic