Posted on 04/18/2008 6:37:23 PM PDT by Dundee
THIS "shredded" and incapacitated F-111 soared across southeast Queensland homes before a spectacular emergency landing at Amberley Air Base.
The jet was flying at 900m on a test bombing raid at Evans Head, northern NSW, when a pelican struck the fibreglass nose and was sucked into an engine...
The nation's air combat chief, Air Commodore Neil Hart, said the jet's predicament and "precautionary emergency landing" was not serious enough to alert the public...
"One engine was working fine, while the other was at reduced power."
He described the circumstances of the incident, which happened between 10am and noon, as near freakish. "It's a surprise thing at 3000ft to have a bird strike," he said.
"It's certainly not the way we want to operate all the time. The boys did a great job in getting it home."
Repairs to the F-111 – one of 21 active jets – are expected to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Initially the pelican bounced off the nose before being sucked into an engine.
Its impact smashed the plane's ray-dome before causing an immediate engine failure.
The damaged aircraft is expected to be flying again within a month. The F-111 fleet, built in 1974, will be retired in 2010 when an expanded fleet of new Super Hornets is introduced.
At the time of the incident the F-111 was cruising at more than 550km/h. The Air Chief played down fears the flight path endangered homes across the region, though he conceded there were homes in the flight path.
The pilot and air combat officer in the plane were both "reasonably experienced" flight lieutenants, he said...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
ROHDAN???
Mmmmm....Tastes like chicken!
Any landing you can walk away from...
FB-111...Good Bird.
Looking at the pictures, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the bird didn’t survive.
Wonder what the Tail Number is?
007?
Just "radome" - radar dome
Man, that must have been an interesting view from the cockpit, that nose was probably flopping all over the place.
Suddenly, there was a bad odor that filled the cabin. Everyone cautiously double-checked their seatbelts. The smell was unmistakeably burning flesh.
At last the captain came on. "We just sucked a large sea bird through out left engine. We think we will be fine. Thought you would want to know."
He was right, we were OK, but it was pretty scary.
I plead ignorance.Can one of you military people tell me what the heck I am looking at? I thought a nose cone was filled with electronic gizmos and such. This one looks like it is full of rolled hay.
I worked on the F-111s at Cannon AFB NM,RAF Upper Heyford UK Mt Home AFB ID and SA during the 1st gulf war.It is a tough old aircraft and can take a lot, it is built like a tank.
The radome is made of fiberglass.It houses the forward looking radar dish and some other components.
Is that Aussie for radome?
The Australians have a lot of these...
We sold the Aussies them back in the seventies,ours are all retired.
Pelican damages F-111 mid-flight
What really happened:
Swing wing, like the B-1 ?
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