According to the article, the F-111 was really, really fast. Like, F-15EX kind of fast. (They make fun of the recent mach 3 claim, too)
1 Like
I will have ask a friend who I have known since Primary (elementary) School.
He spent the bulk of his 20 years in the RAAF as a RADTECH working on F-111’s. I do remember him being adamant, that at low level, nothing was faster…
And because we are talking about the Pig. @Bogusheadbox
4 Likes
Weren’t the restricting actors the heat tolerance of the windscreen and radome?
That’s what the article claims - and says also there was a countdown timer that started counting down above a certain airspeed and was in a poor spot for the crew to see it, but no doubt they’d hear about it when the crew chief saw it had counted down some 
2 Likes
He wasn’t working on this one was he?
When are we going to see it in dcs?
7 Likes
I am 99% sure that it was Wedgetail eagle that did that… 
I’ve heard we will be getting a DCS Pig in two weeks 
6 Likes
Man I listened to a fighter pilot podcast on the pig the other day, and ithad me jonesing for a dcs pig something fierce. At full wing sweep, it would spin out before stalling, and had about as much roll authority as a teenager’s father!
4 Likes
The thing with low level top speed is that somehow a lot of aircraft claim that they are really fast down low. The Viggen is supposed to be fast, the Tornado is supposed to be fast. Heck even the Mirage III makes 750 knots on the deck. But if everybody is fast, no one really stands out anymore.
Funnily even the B-1B has this aura of being really fast on the deck. Yet at Mach 0.95 can probably be overtaken by every fighter in the past 60 years.
3 Likes
I suspect there’s more to going fast and low than just sheer engine power.
Tornado and Aardvark had these ridiculous high wingloadings, and this was said to help with flying low. The bone has these little whisker canard control surfaces that aid in flying low.
So yeah, maybe a flanker has the power to catch a bone on the deck, he won’t be staying with it as it winds its way through the weather.
Insert gif of tie fighters crashing into canyon walls.
4 Likes
True, but they aren’t carrying 82 500lb bombs at 95% the speed of sound.
4 Likes
Dont toy with my emotions like that. 
3 Likes
A side by side aircraft in VR would be awesome in multiplayer.
High fives all round for everything
4 Likes
So long as Razbam or Heatblur make it, based on the excellent animated in-cockpit virtual pilot models in the F-14 and F-15
2 Likes
Did anyone ever fly the 111 at altitude at high Mach? Outside testing? I don’t think there were any attack profiles where that would ever happen, so who knows what it might have done?
2 Likes
Jeff Guin in one of his interviews talks about doing a high alt high speed flight. I’ll see if I can find it again.
1 Like
Maybe the photo recon profiles, but I suspect there would be speed limits on the actual photo run so not sure there either?
My main thought when reading that article:
M2.5+ is a cut off point and where you need to start using different materials to deal with the heat if you look at F-15 development for example. The F-111DEF TOs all state a dash speed limit (absolute maximum) of 214 degrees C or M2.5 (whichever is lower). So fat chance it was built to go over M2.5 in any way (the manual limits are very real or so an ex GD F-1111 structures chap told me)
One of the manuals has M2.2 as when paint starts blistering and can cause partial delamination (which can lead to structural failure of said structure). So a bit weird that someone would intentionally damage the aircraft by going massively over the limits when it is supposed to be going back into service. (kinda their job to not do that) 
4 Likes
Isn’t it dependent on altitude though? Mach 3 at sea level would melt most anything, at 36k it’s not as bad, but at say 70k it would be even easier.
I mean temperature is temperature and always the limiting factor, but I’ve never seen a graph that says “nose heating will be 200C at speed X at altitude Y” showing how you can go faster the higher up you are.
2 Likes