Page 91 - History of War - Issue 30-16

GENERAL DYNAMICS F-111 AARDVARK

This General Dynamics
F-111 Aardvark is housed
in the fully refurbished and
reopened American Air
Museum at the Imperial
War Museum Duxford in
Cambridgeshire. For more
details and information visit: www.iwm.org.uk/ A WORLD OF
visits/iwm-duxford
INFORMATION

COMBAT SERVICE

From September 1972 to March 1973 F-111As
l ew over 4,000 combat sorties over Vietnam with
only six combat losses. This gave the F-111A a
loss rate of only 0.015 per cent, which made it
the most survivable aircraft of the Vietnam War.
Over 40 F-111s took part in Operation El Dorado
Canyon, the US retaliation raid on Libya after
the Berlin bombings in 1986. They performed a
night-time raid dropping 54 tonnes of munitions
on strike targets with the loss of only one aircraft.
Three F-111 squadrons took also part in the Gulf
War l ying large numbers of sorties and were
credited with destroying hundreds of Iraqi vehicles
and artillery pieces along with selected attacks on
Iraqi command centres.

Below: A ground crew prepares a US F-111F for a retaliatory
airstrike on Libya at RAF Lakenheath, England. The aircraft is
armed with GBU-10 modular glide bombs

WAITING TO BE
DISCOVERED

An F-111F releasing its load of Mark 82
bombs. Scenes like this were repeated Haynes
many times during the Gulf War
Knows How

www.haynes.co.uk