Conceived in the early 1960s to satisfy an extraordinarily ambitious requirement of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) on a common multi-role airplane tailored to execute a variety of tactical missions of the military services, initial readings by General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark turned out to be a breakthrough, although not off to a promising beginning. This revolutionary type saw action in such diverse roles as ground attack/interdiction, strategic bomb carrier with nuclear weapons, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare.
The F-111 Aardvark entered service with the U.S. It flew for the first time in 1967, conceived primarily as a bomber. Remarkable design and two remarkable machines were differentiated from their contemporaries. The F-111 was the first production variable-geometry wing aircraft, sweeping its wings from 16 to 72.5 degrees, which gave it the capability for a low-speed flight to supersonic speeds over Mach 2. In addition, the F-111 introduced after-burning turbofan engines to provide the necessary power for flying supersonically to Europe without refueling in the air.
Among the unique features of the F-111 were advanced avionics that allowed it to carry out night and adverse-weather operations within very close proximity to the surface. Its radar could guide the aircraft as low as 200 feet above the ground, following the changing terrain without any input from the pilot. Coupled with this, the Aardvark’s ability to locate and strike targets under adverse conditions made it a very effective weapon.
For instance, in the Vietnam War, the F-111 had twice the range of the F-4 Phantom, with a weapons load of two and a half times the weight. Later models of the F-111F were equipped with the AN/AVQ-26 Pave Tack infrared targeting system with the improved capability of ground target tracking and designation for laser, infrared, and electro-optical bombs.
The performance of the F-111 was demonstrated in April 1986 during “Operation El Dorado Canyon” of air strikes that the United States Naval Forces launched against Libya. On the longest fighter combat mission ever undertaken at the time, the mission involved a round-trip distance of 6,400 miles, from the United Kingdom to Libya, lasting 13 hours with four aerial refuelings each way. A single loss of an aircraft notwithstanding, the operation was successful.
The flexibility and efficiency of the Aardvark were again revealed during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when it flew more than 2,400 sorties against Iraqi strategic sites, vehicle formations, and hardened bunkers—making it one of the most efficient aircraft the Allies had during the conflict.
In total, 566 F-111s of all variants were built, and the last F-111F was finally retired from U.S. Air Force service in 1996, finally replaced on the medium-range precision strike mission by the F-15E Strike Eagle. The supersonic bomber task fell to the B-1B Lancer. That the F-111 Aardvark was an airplane that could do nearly everything: fighter, bomber, low-level penetration bomber, nuclear bomber, was its true inheritance-the fact that as one of the very few genuinely multi-role combat airplanes, it integrated, in its time, some of the most remarkable technologies of its time with a greater degree of versatility than any other major contemporary combatant aircraft.