![\"IMG_0369:](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3735\/12819923693_57ac4ab3ac_z.jpg\")
<\/a>This was my\u00a0“Monday at the museum” pick yesterday, a General Dynamics F-111E Aardvark. I chose the Aardvark because a lot of American and Australian visitors ask if we have one, and unfortunately ours is parked in a section of the outdoor display area where the ground is soft and we’re not allowed to take the tram. The least I can do, then, is write a short post about it, for the benefit of any museum visitors\u00a0who might discover my blog. And for you too, dear reader.<\/p>\n
Military aviation enthusiasts my age (well, actually, anybody<\/em> my age) will remember a strong-willed and powerful secretary of defense named Robert\u00a0McNamara,\u00a0right-hand man of Presidents\u00a0Kennedy and Johnson, the disastrous architect of the Vietnam War. One of his many projects* was the development of a\u00a0one-size-fits-all fighter aircraft for the Air Force and Navy, the TFX (tactical fighter experimental).\u00a0McNamara pushed\u00a0the TFX\u00a0through development, and the aircraft, now designated the F-111,\u00a0was test\u00a0flown by both services. The Navy never wanted the aircraft and ultimately rejected it in favor of\u00a0Grumman’s F-14 Tomcat, but the Air Force adopted it\u00a0and employed several versions of the\u00a0F-111 from the late 1960s until retiring the last of them in 1998. The Royal Australian Air Force\u00a0was the only other operator,\u00a0retiring theirs in 2010.<\/p>\n General Dynamics and the Air Force\u00a0crammed every bit of available late-60s analog technology into the jet, and the resulting aircraft was big, heavy, and complex. It was\u00a0our first fighter\u00a0with\u00a0variable geometry, with wings that swept aft for high speed flight and forward for takeoff and landing. It had terrain following radar coupled to an autopilot for hands-off low altitude operation. It had an internal weapons bay and underwing pylons that adjusted to wing sweep for external stores. It had a crew escape capsule rather than individual ejection seats. It was fast, especially at low altitude (you couldn’t catch them, and believe me I’ve tried), capable of Mach 2.5 at altitude (only the F-15, which came later, could match that). Yes, it had a cannon and could carry air-to-air missiles, but was exclusively employed as a tactical bomber (a lengthened version, the FB-111, carried gravity nuclear bombs and was used as a strategic bomber).<\/p>\n The F-111, which initially appeared to be one of the all-time military-industrial complex boondoggles,\u00a0proved to be an effective low-altitude high-speed penetrating bomber, and has an\u00a0extensive combat record. F-111s saw action in Vietnam from 1968 to the end of the war, the retaliatory raid against Libya in 1986, and Desert Storm in the 1990s.\u00a0An unarmed electronic warfare variant, the EF-111 Raven, logged combat hours in Desert Storm, jamming enemy radars.<\/p>\n Pima Air and Space Museum’s Aardvark is an E model, once assigned to the USAF’s\u00a020th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Upper Heyford, UK, and is a veteran of the Gulf War. You don’t realize what a huge\u00a0beast it is until you stand\u00a0underneath it.\u00a0A German Tornado, another\u00a0swing-wing fighter, is parked alongside, almost toy-like in comparison.<\/p>\n For most all of its operational life, the F-111 was, officially, just the F-111. McNamara didn’t like the military’s habit of naming aircraft, I guess, but because of the jet’s long snout, everyone called it the Aardvark (but not the Aussies, who called it the Pig). When Air Combat Command retired the last of its F-111s, it finally bestowed\u00a0Aardvark\u00a0as its official name.**<\/p>\n *Another of McNamara’s projects was the 1962 United States Tri-Service Aircraft Designation System. Before McNamara, the Navy and Marine Corps had their own\u00a0way of designating aircraft, different from that used by the Army and Air Force. When the Navy and Marines began flying a new twin-engine fighter in 1960, it was called the F4H\u00a0(F for fighter, 4 for the model number, H for McDonnell-Douglas, its manufacturer). McNamara ordered the services to adopt the Air Force designation system in 1962, and the F4H became the F-4, the fighter\u00a0we know as the Phantom II. I work with a lot of older docents (older than me, at any rate), and they, along with many of the Navy and Marine veterans who visit our museum, still<\/em> bitch about the change! Me, I consider it one of the\u00a0few\u00a0positive contributions McNamara made as SecDef, but I keep my opinion to myself when I’m around museum visitors.<\/p>\n **The electronic warfare variant, the EF-111,\u00a0was officially named the “Raven” at its introduction in 1983, but aircrews have always called it the “Sparkvark.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/1677\/24657402189_9b4618645c_z.jpg\")
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