The Gun Counter

SoupOrMan wrote: (snip) We had a few planes restricted to under Mach 1.1 due to engine nacelle and wing cracks.

Now THAT has to give a pilot a case of the warm-fuzzies.......

Well, the cracking was found on the EF-111A, which used the oldest airframes. All of said airframes were run through the wringer well before conversion to the EF. This turned the EF-111A into a perimeter/orbiter aircraft and subsonic flight was fine for that. They were supposed to originally be a lead aircraft for strike packages, but I guess the old frames plus the ALQ-99 being less effective if it gets too close to a radar facility took that out of the tactics book.

In 1982, the F-111s from Mountain Home would visit our little bombing range for some high-loft practice. Usually it was A-6s Intruders from Whidbey Island coming to the Naval Weapon System Training Facility at Boardman OR to drop a dozen M-76 practice bombs, but once a month we'd see the 'Varks. For their visit, we'd have to clear the lights and generator off the bullseye and widen the focus on the spotting cameras; for a high-loft, anything inside a thousand-foot circle was a bullseye. Good times.

High-loft was for nukes, so a thousand-foot circle would be good enough.

SoupOrMan wrote:High-loft was for nukes, so a thousand-foot circle would be good enough.

Initially. Later it also served to get an LGB into position to acquire a target being designated by another aircraft or a ground source (don't know if it was ever used operationally).

When I got out we were looking at it for getting JDAMs into an attack position while minimizing aircraft exposure.

I don't know how much they handed off ordnance once the Pave Tack system went operational.

As I said, not sure if it was used operationally, but we did include it in our menu of available delivery options (for multiple airframes, not just the 'Vark). I do know they practiced buddy lasing, switching off delivery and tagging the target between wingmen.

I think one concept was to use it as a delivery from outside denied territory while a snake eater type covertly lased the target from the ground. "Us? Bomb your facility/glorious leader? How could we? We never had any aircraft in the area/our aircraft were miles away in international airspace!"

Even after twenty years, I can still remember the whistle of the engines as they taxi to and from EOR. I loved that sound.