F111 - Emergency Landing

Here is a happy ending video.

The F-111 was in full-scale production on a mile long assembly line in Fort Worth when I was monitoring that program in the corporate offices of General Dynamics in NYC. I spent a lot of time in Texas when you were a toddler. So I got to see a lot of films showing both good performance and bad news about the aircraft. The attached video is a very frank and personal account of an F-111 landing emergency in the Australian Air Force.

It features the much maligned and hated “tail hook” that all F-111’s carried. You might have heard that the F-111 was supposed to be a “tri-service aircraft” good for long range bombing missions (Air Force), close air support (Army) and carrier operations (Navy). The Navy’s requirement to snag the braking cables on the flight deck made all the airplanes heavier in structure and encumbered by that hook mechanism.

While the Air Force guys in particular bitched about the hook, this video illustrates a case where it came in very handy.