[IYAS9YAS]

I loved this plane growing up as a kid. I am not sure if it is so good as others have said. I got close to it during an air show and it looked amazing. The flames that come out of the engine are also cool. Anyone on here fly one?

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.

[mad_as_he$$]

There used to be video up on the net of an F-111 tearing down some canyon at night in terrain following mode. That took some brass ones on the part of the crew.

[KnutKase]

Very cool... would have like to experienced that... I did get to see a ever flyby years ago.

I was a small part of a larger group that upgraded the TFR for the F-111 before, during and a bit after the first Gulf War...

We had a two star visit and tell us a couple of cool stories about them during that same war.

[Mogger]

When I was stationed at Pease AFB, NH a F-111 crew from another base was struggling to make it to a landing.

If I recall right, they had lost most or all of their hydraulics.

As they approached the base, they were low and losing control.

They realized they weren't going to make it. They were over a housing area, K-Mart was ahead, they had just passed over part of Portsmouth.There was a short break or trees between housing areas, they were now just above treetop level.

Seeing their one chance at putting the bird down without major carnage, the pilot and bombardier-navigator both placed their feet on the yokes and shoved forward with all their might to send it into the ground.

As it nosed over they punched out.

F-111s house the crew in a pod about the size of a sedan.

When they leave the rest of the plane due to a situation like this, they ride then enclosed pod as rockets send it away from the plane and high enough for the large parachutes to work for a reasonably gentle landing.

The only damage on the ground were some burned trees and melted vinyl siding on an apartment building.

The crew landed in an empty parking spot in the K-Mart parking lot and were fine.