Improving the F111

One of the well hashed what-fs on this site is what would have happened to the RAF if it had procured the F111K. That got my thinking, could the F111 have become even more successful than its later versions became.

The F111E formed an important part of NATOs operational strike force in the 70s and 80s, providing the main theatre nuclear capability from aircraft. It could have been the logical replacement for the RAF Valiant force assigned to SACEUR if the E had arrived sooner.

The multi-role F111 failed to emerge. But could a different type, perhaps smaller TFX or F111 have done this job.

Not quite sure what this thread might bring.

A Euro F111 in the 70s might have been an alternative to Tornado.

I know some people were kicking around the idea of an ADV/air battleship modification to the F-111C, but that was in the AMRAAM era.


Whether the concept would have worked absent the Phoenix and the specific avionics fit of the -B, I'm not sure. It might work if you accept the aircraft as an interceptor and don't ask it to dogfight, but in that case - and depending on the exact time-scale - you might as well just offer a downgraded F-14 with TFR added, bombing capability put in and Phoenix taken out.


IIRC the -111D was fitted with an illuminator for Sparrow, but the feature was never really used. On that note, was the original strike version of Tornado able to illuminate for AIM-7, or was it only ever an AIM-9 carrier?

Dale Brown?

pathology_doc said:

I think it was actually an Australian wish-fulfilment fantasy to see an F-111C with eight AMRAAM (four twin launchers) on the swivel hardpoints, to take advantage of the F-111's straight-line speed and low-flying capability as a cruise missile and low level intruder killer (the M61 gun with its 2000 round drum may or may not have figured). IIRC it wasn't a starter because they would have needed quite a bit of rewiring to be AIM-120 capable and it wasn't worth it with the remaining flight hours diminishing and the aircraft earmarked to leave service before too long.

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I wonder how many AIM-120Cs they could have crammed into the internal bay.

From memory, that of the F-111B was intended to take two Phoenix. I can't remember whether the same bay dimensions were also present in the bomber versions.

pathology_doc said:

From memory, that of the F-111B was intended to take two Phoenix. I can't remember whether the same bay dimensions were also present in the bomber versions.

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The FB-111 could fit 2 SRAM missiles in its bay.

pathology_doc said:

I think it was actually an Australian wish-fulfilment fantasy to see an F-111C with eight AMRAAM (four twin launchers) on the swivel hardpoints, to take advantage of the F-111's straight-line speed and low-flying capability as a cruise missile and low level intruder killer (the M61 gun with its 2000 round drum may or may not have figured). IIRC it wasn't a starter because they would have needed quite a bit of rewiring to be AIM-120 capable and it wasn't worth it with the remaining flight hours diminishing and the aircraft earmarked to leave service before too long.

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Are you referring to this fanciful concept by Carlo Kopp (enough said!)?





It wasn't a starter because it was a joke concept that had absolutely no driving need - without a threat why would any air force invest in such a fanciful concept and even if there was a threat, there would be better solutions readily available. Just because one can draw pictures does not mean they can do engineering!

Is Carlo Kopp really that hard to take seriously? I know his somewhat hyperbolic f-35 reportage has been wallpapered all over the place and they might have done things a little different had they known the coverage they (air power Australia) were going to get.

As for F-111, I think its range makes it a good fit for a high speed heavy interceptor for nato to cover most of Western Europe in a defensive capacity as well as the mentioned tactical nuclear role once the soviets roll West.

Can anyone speak to f-111's capability for taking off on damaged/improvised runways? I know with a heavy payload it's a long way from being a STO aircraft, swing wing or not.

I wonder whether Australia weeps have kept up the structural overhauls and boron patches if there was foreign development and upgrades to piggy back on to keep it up to date. I know they were pushing things as it was anyway but if there were off the shelf updates at hand thanks to a European fleet maybe they would have rebuilt them from the ground up.

phrenzy said:

I wonder whether Australia weeps have kept up the structural overhauls and boron patches if there was foreign development and upgrades to piggy back on to keep it up to date.

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If there was an American systems upgrade for the F-111 through to now there would also have to be an American airframe, engine, etc upgrade program to keep the aircraft flying. The reliability state the F-111 was in before retirement was worse than many people suspect. The wings might not have been falling off but the widgets were failing all the time. 50% serviceability on the flight-line was common. It would be nice to have a modern F-111 class aircraft for the RAAF into the 21st century like the AF/X or A-12 but no-one built it for us.

That is worse than I had heard. I knew the Americans were not very impressed with the structural patches and nobody else was going to adopt them.

I suppose strike eagles fufill that role and there are still facilities geared to building them. I always wondered why they didn't do more with the Eagles design along the f-16xl model to push it into the f-111 class (super)heavy fighter bomber.

I think the fact that strike Eagles weren't picked up elsewhere is perhaps an indicator that f-111 didn't have a future in europe. The tornado fufilled a requirement that neither of those aircraft could, keeping aerospace defence spending on the continent. There were precious few dedicated low level strike aircraft though, what are the alternatives? A-10 maybe?

phrenzy said:

I think the fact that strike Eagles weren't picked up elsewhere is perhaps an indicator that f-111 didn't have a future in europe. The tornado fufilled a requirement that neither of those aircraft could, keeping aerospace defence spending on the continent. There were precious few dedicated low level strike aircraft though, what are the alternatives? A-10 maybe?

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Well, Tornado did it, but in the 1980s you also had Mirage 2000 variants, F-16s, Jaguars, Harriers, A-7s, F-104s...there was no shortage of low-level strikers in Europe even if you discount the F-111. The extensive inventory of capable hitters really meant that you didn't have to put a lot of money into a fleet of F-111s; you just reserved the ones you had for missions where speed and range requirements called for them.

phrenzy said:

Is Carlo Kopp really that hard to take seriously?

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For those of us in the industry with actual Air Force experience and engineering knowledge…YES!

phrenzy said:

As for F-111, I think its range makes it a good fit for a high speed heavy interceptor for nato to cover most of Western Europe in a defensive capacity as well as the mentioned tactical nuclear role once the soviets roll West.

Can anyone speak to f-111's capability for taking off on damaged/improvised runways? I know with a heavy payload it's a long way from being a STO aircraft, swing wing or not.

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Although the F-111 was fast, once it got going (USN reportedly considered the F-111 the greatest "threat" from USAF in exercises because in a shallow descent from altitude it could maintain M2 for a long time), its acceleration wasn't that good, rate of climb was not dramatic and its turning ability at altitude would be a problem (the latter, BTW, was why despite the thoughts of some the TSR.2 would not have worked as an interceptor). One can draw conclusions from the fact that McNamara tried to force the F-111 down USAF's throat as an interceptor to the point of ordering the production line for the Lockheed Blackbird destroyed. He basically told USAF that their choice for the Improved Manned Interceptor was the F-111 or nothing. They chose ...nothing.


Regarding operatins from improvised runways, although the original specifications for what would become the F-111 said this was a desired feature, the design of the gear and location of the intakes (especially with the sensitive TF30s) might preclude that. More importantly, given the value of the F-111 and its requirement for support, I'd think it unlikely USAF would want to operate it from roads, open fields, etc.

F-14D said:

Although the F-111 was fast, once it got going (USN reportedly considered the F-111 the greatest "threat" from USAF in exercises because in a shallow descent from altitude it could maintain M2 for a long time),

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Makes one wonder how scary a B-58 with Skybolt ASBM/Fuel pod might be with today's tech. Or even just have the 1st stage be a booster with the 2nd stage/RV swapped with a semi-ballistic glider.

sferrin said:

Makes one wonder how scary a B-58 with Skybolt ASBM/Fuel pod might be with today's tech. Or even just have the 1st stage be a booster with the 2nd stage/RV swapped with a semi-ballistic glider.

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Well if you have something like Skybolt with effective terminal guidance, you'd have no need for B-58 performance because you wouldn't have to get close enough that it would matter .

As for the latter, why not talk with the Chinese about their Wu-14?

F-14D said:

sferrin said:

Makes one wonder how scary a B-58 with Skybolt ASBM/Fuel pod might be with today's tech. Or even just have the 1st stage be a booster with the 2nd stage/RV swapped with a semi-ballistic glider.

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Well if you have something like Skybolt with effective terminal guidance, you'd have no need for B-58 performance because you wouldn't have to get close enough that it would matter .

As for the latter, why not talk with the Chinese about their Wu-14?

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It's probably as close to being in service as the US HTV-2.

sferrin said:

F-14D said:

sferrin said:

Makes one wonder how scary a B-58 with Skybolt ASBM/Fuel pod might be with today's tech. Or even just have the 1st stage be a booster with the 2nd stage/RV swapped with a semi-ballistic glider.

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Well if you have something like Skybolt with effective terminal guidance, you'd have no need for B-58 performance because you wouldn't have to get close enough that it would matter .

As for the latter, why not talk with the Chinese about their Wu-14?

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It's probably as close to being in service as the US HTV-2.

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Well, in the case of HTV-2, there are no plans to fly it any more, whereas the Wu-14 seems to working towards an operational vehicle. We keep talking about a Hypersonic Glide Vehicle or Advanced Hypersonic weapon, but except for some small feasibility studies we don't seem to be moving forward towards an operational vehicle very much.

'Course this particular discussion is well out of the realm of improving the F-111 and any further would probably belong over at the "US Prompt Global Strike Capability" topic.

GTX said:

Are you referring to this fanciful concept by Carlo Kopp (enough said!)?

It wasn't a starter because it was a joke concept that had absolutely no driving need - without a threat why would any air force invest in such a fanciful concept and even if there was a threat, there would be better solutions readily available. Just because one can draw pictures does not mean they can do engineering!

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It was something like that, but I don't clearly remember it being this exact one. The missiles seemed restricted to the wing racks, which brought it more into the realm of actual do-ability (once you had somehow rewired the fire control system to talk to the AAMs).

GTX said:

phrenzy said:

Is Carlo Kopp really that hard to take seriously?

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For those of us in the industry with actual Air Force experience and engineering knowledge…YES!

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LOLOL Oh dear.

pathology_doc said:

GTX said:

Are you referring to this fanciful concept by Carlo Kopp (enough said!)?

It wasn't a starter because it was a joke concept that had absolutely no driving need - without a threat why would any air force invest in such a fanciful concept and even if there was a threat, there would be better solutions readily available. Just because one can draw pictures does not mean they can do engineering!

Click to expand...

It was something like that, but I don't clearly remember it being this exact one. The missiles seemed restricted to the wing racks, which brought it more into the realm of actual do-ability (once you had somehow rewired the fire control system to talk to the AAMs).

GTX said:

phrenzy said:

Is Carlo Kopp really that hard to take seriously?

Click to expand...

For those of us in the industry with actual Air Force experience and engineering knowledge…YES!

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LOLOL Oh dear.

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I think I saw Peter Goon at the defence+industry conference here the other day though I had to leave before the meet and greet so I'm not completely sure.

I understand some of the general criticism like harping on about Australian F-22s long after that was at all even remotely possible and the way his stuff gets picked up and passed off as authoritative in the media on f-35 stories but is there some specific issue with APA I don't know about beyond that?
Maybe this deserves it's own thread as in curious and I'd like to know more, I don't drink their kool-aid at all but there are lots of groups like APA all over the place, is it just that they are given so many column inches and referred to like they are the Australian RAND that bothers people?

Or is there specific malfeasance I'm ignorant of?

Sorry to derail the thread.

On topic isn't the missile truck (f-111/b-1 etc.) concept more or less over before it began? Nobody is thinking seriously about that now are they (besides the producers of future dogfights)? Certainly at the time of f-111 operation they weren't thinking of it as having much of an A2A future, it's easy to forget that the first Eagles were flying around the time of f-111s first real operational usage.

I suppose the f-111 was confused from the start, sometimes too much fighter sometimes too much bomber and not designed with future expansion into other roles in mind. They should have done more reconfiguration when the Navy dropped out but I suppose it was too late then. I understand it had a good showing over Libya though.

Would the f-111 really have made a good tactical nuclear platform over Europe in ww3 as envisioned? Surely by the mid 70's it would be pretty dangerous work trying to fly over Soviet lines to strike specific targets even if it wasn't over the entrenched air defence network of Soviet territory but just facing off against the mobile SAMs following the front line as the soviets rolled into West Germany.

A tandem-seat cockpit arrangement would have allowed a skinner overall fuselage - equating to a lighter weight, although at the cost of some fuel :
I've always thought the Pig's landing gear not just took up copious amounts of internal space, but also added weight. I for one would have loved to have seen a sturdy rough-field performance twin main wheel arrangement reminiscent to the SEPECAT Jaguar or Mirage F1! In fact I think the Soviet's got it right with the Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer!! This would also negate one of my biggest bug-beds of the Pig's design - the inability to use that huge under fuselage for hardpoints for a copious amount of weapons - aka Tornado IDS & Fencer style, freeing up wing pylons for either external fuel or simply allowing the wings to be kept more aerodynamically clean!! Oh yeah and that blood huge and seemingly not to thought out barn door sized airbrake would also have to go, so as to free up usable under-fuselage space for weapons!!
Oh and get rid of that heavy cockpit ejection capsule, designed for over water ops and nuclear war survivability .
Saying this I would love to ascertain how much weight we've saved?
Oh and of course those troublesome and underpowered TF30 have to be replace..........as well as the introduction of a simplified air-intact arrangement

Well that just my thoughts.

P.S, I always thought that if NATO was to have gone all out or stuck with the Tornado design as its principle platform, I thought it would have been more effective/productive to replace the 'classic' Tornado IDS airframe for an improved variant utilising the longer and more internal fuel load F3 Tornado ADV airframe and its more powerful engines

Regards
Pioneer

Hang on a minute, there's something more I've just remembered that I wanted to add re the Pig's potential to more potential customers - especially NATO!
What about basing any further marketing and foreign buyers to the somewhat smaller = lighter = potential cheaper F-111 CWIP configuration!

P.S. out of interest, does anyone have any 3-view drawing of the F-111 CWIP configuration

Regards
Pioneer

3-view on Tommy's page here.

George Allegrezza said:

3-view on Tommy's page here.

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Thanks heaps George Allegrezza
Great article and info Tommy H. Thomason!!
Maybe, just maybe my thoughts might have had some merit :

I can't help but think just how much different the TFX might have been, had the Navy had lead role of the F-111 design? I mean what if the TFX had of been designed for carrier ops first (due to the more stringent and restrictive carrier ops needs and parameters.....). To which the USAF would adapt to their specifications ...... I'm thinking fuselage plugs (fuselage stretch), longer wing span .......... After all, the USAF was able to do just a thing with the US Navy's McDonnell F-4 Phantom II! A design in which the USAF first hated, because it was a Navy design, but came to be the principle fighter-bomber the USAF could not do without

Regards
Pioneer