WIP Aardvark Article

“Fast and Low”
Anon Y. Mous gets you the lowdown on strike pilot secrets

F-111 head-on shot. [no caption, picture intervenes below title/subtitle and above article]

The Osean Great Basin Desert is a barren, windblown waste. As I bake in the midday sun, squinting through the blinding glow at a bombing exercise, I feel sand in places I didn’t know sand could be. The wind blasts the small cluster of observers, leaving us wishing for a respite from the harsh conditions. But for the pilots of the OADF’s 389th Fighter Squadron, nowhere could be more comfortable than screaming over the deck at 100 feet and mach 1.2.

F-111 / EF-111 formation image [Caption: An F-111 strike package of the OADF’s 398th Fighter Squadron moves to strike targets during Operation Desert Arrow. Note the distinctive shape of the EF-111 Raven Electronic Warfare variant at the formation’s rear.]

Through the distant distortion of the heatwaves, my binoculars reveal a multitude of bombs departing from a formation of F-111Fs, each one blasting an IFV target with pinpoint accuracy. It’s over in a fraction of a second, and the tight formation of strike craft smoothly pulls away from the fake enemy column, heading off into the haze over the flat mesa.

As the sun sets, the crowd dwindles from a cluster to a pair, and as darkness blankets the range, the freezing desert wind cuts through my jacket like a knife. Lieutenant Colonel ‘Football’ Brown, the one who smuggled me onto the range for tonight’s viewing, grins and comments that the fun is about to start, handing me a set of night vision gear.

Through the gritty green filter, a glint in the corner of my eye draws my attention. Blasting out of a canyon at blistering speed, a new cluster of Aardvarks takes a different approach to the target area. Remarkably, the pilots are at the same incredibly low altitude as before despite the darkness, dodging crags and outcroppings casually on their way to the target. Through the NVGs, it’s impossible to make out the weapons release, but there’s no mistaking the blinding flashes of laser guided bomb detonations in the night. “You’re in for a treat.” says the Lt. Colonel, “My pilots are the best in the business.” A few moments later, as the explosions from another low altitude pass blossom on the desert floor, I start to think he’s right.

F-111 formation 1 [Caption: Two F-111Fs of the 77th Tactical Fighter Wing fly over the outskirts of Chopinburg, Osea, en route to training at Handel AFB. Lt Colonel Stuart Brown is flying the lead plane.]

The history of the F-111 in Osean service is a strange one. Born out of the Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) program, the Aardvark was designed to meet the requirements of both the navy and air force at the same time. Unfortunately, the two services required radically different aircraft—The air force needed a strike jet with good low altitude performance, and the navy needed an interceptor with a huge radar to carry its new AIM-54 Phoenix missile. The services agreed, however, that the craft should have swing wings to take off in a short distance, dual engines, and a tandem cockpit.

The F-111A won over the air force, where it was quickly outfitted with a ground following radar, but the naval F-111B variant would not be adopted. Instead, the navy leveraged the experience from the F-111 to develop a large, twin-engine swing-wing design; the renowned F-14 Tomcat. While the F-14 is by far the more famous fighter, today, the Aardvark takes center stage, as the first production variable geometry aircraft.

The earliest variant, the F-111A, was plagued with problems stemming from the ever-temperamental TF-30 engines. Several engine intake redesigns resolved the issues with compressor stall, and the type was readily accepted by the OADF, deployed for testing overseas into the thick jungles of the Etamin War. Initially losing three aircraft in a month, the F-111s were grounded and the tests cancelled. The incisive year of reports that followed discovered a flaw in the horizontal stabilizer, which was rectified, leading to the redeployment of the Aardvark.

The second time around, the F-111 fared considerably better. Carrying quadruple the bombload of an F-4, with incredible low-altitude performance and all-weather capability, the ‘Vark earned its reputation, flying missions when weather or enemy activity kept other planes grounded. Rapidly established as an incredibly capable machine founded, it would go on to build on its legacy with the addition of the legendarily accurate Pave Tack guidance system on the C model, attracting many of the best pilots the OADF had to offer, like Lieutenant Colonel Brown.

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The day after the midnight exercises, I sit across the Lt. Colonel’s desk. “Call me