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I read somewhere that the Viper is a swing wing aircraft. And I couldn't figure out what it meant so i thought, let's ask it on the forum Very Happy

! Can anyone tell me what it means?

Tim

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It means that the wings are movable, and no, the Viper is not. It does incorporate a swept wing that increases maneuverability, but the only three planes in the US inventory that use a swing wing set up are the F-14 (not in service anymore), the B-1, and the F-111.

Veteran Joined: Nov 10, 2004 Posts: 262 Status: Offline

the F-111 has also been since retired, before the Tomcat actually...

The last -111's in service were the EF-111A's with the 429th ECS in Cannon retired circa 1997-1998

Elite Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1029 Status: Offline

I loved watching the EF's fly while I was in Saudi...

Veteran Joined: Nov 10, 2004 Posts: 262 Status: Offline

I loved hearing some of their stories from the crew dawgs that got cross trained to the -16's at cannon after they deactivated

The -111 has been retired too?!?

when was that?

Elite Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1029 Status: Offline

The EF-111 retired from the Air Force in June of 1998. We then went to the EA-6B Prowler.

Elite Joined: May 14, 2004 Posts: 2945 Location: Utah

The Aussies still fly the F-111 and they are happy with it

You can still catch sight of Aussie F-111's flying at Red Flag every once in awhile. Quite impressive!

VuijkT wrote:

I read somewhere that the Viper is a swing wing aircraft. And I couldn't figure out what it meant so i thought, let's ask it on the forum Very Happy

! Can anyone tell me what it means?

Tim

Perhaps you heard that the -16 performs a swing role. That means that it can perform both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles.

Mike

checksixx wrote:

The EF-111 retired from the Air Force in June of 1998. We then went to the EA-6B Prowler.

Some people belive we would still be flying the Ravens if they hadn't ran out of motors or re-engined them. It's said that one raven can do the job of six prowlers.

Veteran Joined: Feb 22, 2006 Posts: 323 Status: Offline

What is after EA-6, Super Hornet G? Back in 80s we had so many aircraft tasked for different missions, now we a few types doing most of tasks... Picture a CAG in the 80s and now...

vegasdave901 wrote:

You can still catch sight of Aussie F-111's flying at Red Flag every once in awhile. Quite impressive!

Austrailia got the F-111 "G" models from the USAF, they were the FB-111A's from Pease and Plattsburg, From 1988-1990 all of these airframes received the AMP (Avionics Modernization Program) out at the ALC in Sacramento. The AMP mod put the avionics shops out of business.

The avionics suites (for the time) were state of the art, with ring laser gyros and a radar that looked like a topo map... It was a shame that the Air Force didn't "re-engine" these airpalnes, it would have been a sweet platform. They still needed to wear diapers whenever it rained though....

At Red Flag in '89, I was watching the "Big Screen" and two of our (Pease) FB's were running TFR low level eastbound at about .9 mach when two F-16's spotted them from FL20 flying westbound, the FB drivers realized they'd been spotted and hit the burners, by the time the F-16's got turned around and headed down to engage the FB's.... The FB's were gone.... GO FAST DOWN LOW.....

Another good F-111 story:
Had a pilot (can't remember if I was at Eglin or Pease, I think Eglin, anybody remember) open the bomb doors on an FCF at 1.6 mach, stalled both engines (due to the disruption of the airflow to the engines), it completely ripped out the "football lacing", the pilot was able to get everything restarted and flew it back "code 1" except for the damage to the weapons bay.

Smitty

I played with F-111s at Upper Heyford and Cannon (twice!). On my second round at Cannon I was with the 428th Buccaneers maintaining the F-111Gs. What a totally different aircraft. Never seen so many CODE ONE flights. When we got rid of them in exchange for the AMP'd F-111Es a majority of the "Gs" went to the Australians. The exceptance inspection of the Es was a challenge as we had to re-engine all the aircraft and thats when we found out the differences between all the F-111 models. The inlet spike control system was totally different on the Es and so was the mach trim system on the -103 engine. In a four month period the Buccaneers still trained F-111 pilots, flew the Weapons School pilots, did test pilot flights at Edwards, sent off all the F-111Gs and accepted the F-111Es. Those maintainers rocked! The best folks I ever worked with.

psychmike wrote:

VuijkT wrote:

I read somewhere that the Viper is a swing wing aircraft. And I couldn't figure out what it meant so i thought, let's ask it on the forum Very Happy

! Can anyone tell me what it means?

Tim

Perhaps you heard that the -16 performs a swing role. That means that it can perform both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles.

Mike

Yes, i meant that Very Happy

. My mistake! But thanks Mike!

Tim

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Swing Wing?