[Guest]

End Of an Era

Last Night in Brisbane at River Fire we witnessed the Final “Dump and Burn” of an
F-111, signaling the End of an era in Australian History.

The Dump and Burn was actually discovered by accident in Australia. A pilot had to dump fuel and left the after burner on. This ignited the fuel. And then his Wingman radioed to him, “Mate, your on fire!”

The Royal Australian Air Force has a history of maintaining Technological superiority over Oceanic Countries and some Asia-Pacific Countries.
In 2007, Australia decided to retire all of its RAAF F-111s by 2010, and the government signed a contract to acquire 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets as an "interim" replacement pending the acquisition of the under development F-35 Lightning II.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F/A ... per_Hornet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_M ... ghtning_II

So I present here the First Two Dump and Burns and some Fire Works, unfortunately we didn’t know there was going to be a Surprise Third one, very unexpected so I missed that one. And I only have a Digital Camera , not some big Photography one and I was rather far away in an Apartment Block but it was better than being up close, Got to see everything without a Sore Neck for Once. Well yeh so don’t expect too much.

Any other Aussies feel free to share your video here aswell.
Any way enjoy…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tfM4m27LUI

(Btw all that stalling was meant to build up the climax with the song at the start but it screwed wile uploading so skip the first 30 seconds or so if you want.)

[KG64_Cnopicilin]

The youtube is acting up again, but I think it looks cool, like in this picture:
http://vanydee.files.wordpress.com/2009 ... 3-2007.jpg

[Fireskull]

F-111s were great planes for that time. They had good range, right?


Didn't anybody ever tell the Top Brass that it is cheaper to have inboard fuel capacity than to assign a tanker plane for refueling mid-flight?


:?:



Fireskull

[Razorback_Pilot]

Ah man the F-111 when you get next up to one with it's wings swept you just have to think that it could just own the skies! Sad to see that the RAAF is retiring theirs but that's progress.

[caldrail]

F-111s were great planes for that time. They had good range, right?


Didn't anybody ever tell the Top Brass that it is cheaper to have inboard fuel capacity than to assign a tanker plane for refueling mid-flight?

The same people who realised that take off and load carrying performance is seriously restricted by extra fuel tanks :roll: It isn't cheaper if you have to buy an new aeroplane and train another crew to fly it.

[Fireskull]

F-111s were great planes for that time. They had good range, right?


Didn't anybody ever tell the Top Brass that it is cheaper to have inboard fuel capacity than to assign a tanker plane for refueling mid-flight?

The same people who realised that take off and load carrying performance is seriously restricted by extra fuel tanks :roll: It isn't cheaper if you have to buy an new aeroplane and train another crew to fly it.

Caldrail,

I made a mistake here: Back about 30-40 years ago, they didn't have the super smart bombs that we have.

Now an airforce can be much more devastating with fewer bombs and aircraft because the latest smart bombs are far more accurate and effective. When the F-111 was introduced, even the best bombs required a lot of aircraft to destroy many targets and they had restricted range because of the bomb loads.

Things have really changed!


Fireskull