Sad End For The Pigs

[MACH082]

How about we go do some prospecting fellas? Finders keepers and all!

[jas24zzk]

Wally,


LOL, i was looking into my crystal ball you see....in the future when all the jobs are outsourced to countries not certified to work on VH reg a/c AJ will be forced to do the same thing.

<<<<insert very cheeky grin

[notmyC150v2]

Very sad end indeed.

RAAF Base Amberley F-111 fighter jets end up on Swanbank landfill site near Ipswich | News, events and sport for Ipswich | Courier Mail (http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/ipswich/raaf-base-amberley-f-111-fighter-jets-end-up-on-swanbank-landfill-site-near-ipswich/story-fn8m0yo2-1226204896564)

[rioncentu]

Yes I almost cried when I saw that on the news. I would have LOVED one in the backyard.

What a complete crock to have to bury them? That's just not right.:mad:

[Hydromet]

The US Government had placed tight restrictions on how the planes were be dismantled or preserved with several earmarked for museums around Australia.

Not unlike the mandatory dismantling of lend-lease vehicles at the end of WW II.
AT least one major Australian construction company (not Lend Lease, as far as I know) got its start by dismantling them, certifying that they had been dismantled, then re-assembling them and using them in their business.

[On eyre]

WTF - I'm sure Simsmetal could have recycled them !!

[ForkTailedDrKiller]

What a complete crock to have to bury them? That's just not right.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/censored.gifIsn't that how you dispose of a mob of dead pigs?

Dr :8

[jas24zzk]

no...you eat the buggers! :eek:

Why does this smell of AJ ?.. Bears a strong resemblence to the vision that is the future of QANTAS
:sad:

[aroa]

My take on the F-111 stop apart from the politics is that it shows a dreadful lack of foresight. A week can be a very long time in international affairs and what would happen if things were to go really pear shaped in West Papua??
next week, month or next year... and we are caught short with nothing to fill the bill.

Why not park up in Woomera a selected bunch of the airworthy machines and a hanger full of spares. If the fan gets hit... at least there's the option to peel off the ply,put a few in the air and go get the job done. :ok:

Its interesting to note that when the Hornets were first bought, there was a big song and dance about the need for twin engines and range.
The JSF 35 is SE and will no doubt be a very whizz-bank piece of kit... at HUGE expense... when we ever get them. And the range is????
In the meantime everyone else is building TWIN engine machines.
Perhaps we should be looking at the Korean one.... would probably save the country a few squillion million $ as well.

Alas,.. poor Pigs. Dead AND buried. What a waste of metals. :\
Never mind, its only a game bureaucrats can play, its called Fcuk the Taxpayer! :E

[Wally Mk2]

.............crazy!!!!.........in 50 or so years when most of us are all gone someone will come along & dig 'em up to restore one or two.....:ugh::ugh:
'jas' no resemblance to QF because the photo shows burying hardware not jobs as is the case with QF!

Wmk2

[gobbledock]

Not to mention poor utilization of land fill.
As I watched the poor Pigs being laid to rest I couldn't but help think there was still room for QF management, CASA and the Carbon Queens large fat arse to fit into that eternal pit....what a waste.

[jas24zzk]

Insightful post, but it does lack some thought.......and don't take me as agreeing with what has been done, because I deplore it!!!!!!!!

My take on the F-111 stop apart from the politics is that it shows a dreadful lack of foresight. A week can be a very long time in international affairs and what would happen if things were to go really pear shaped in West Papua??
next week, month or next year... and we are caught short with nothing to fill the bill.

We do have something to fill the bill (apart from the USN), more on that later.

Why not park up in Woomera a selected bunch of the airworthy machines and a hanger full of spares.

They should have all been mothballed there..not just the select airworthy ones. Make it our own Davis Montham. That way they are available for the future in a protracted engagement, or at such time as releasing one or two to civilian display level (i.e Vulcan) becomes permissable/viable

If the fan gets hit... at least there's the option to peel off the ply,put a few in the air and go get the job done.

This is actually unrealistic in a short space of time. You have 3 things against you. 1) Trained aircrew ready to roll 2) Ground crew familiar/certified with type 3) the mammoth task of returning a dormant machine to airworthy status

Remember, many people in the RAAF associated with the F-111 signed out of the organisation when they grounded the pigs.

The work up time to return the a/c to the air, and train crews would probably exceed the length of time of the engagement.

Take a look at the super hornets...they are scheduled for full operational capability (i.e crews trained) somewhere in 2013 IIRC. you'd be better sending those guys into missions they are trained for immediatley, rather than try to ressurect a relic.

Its interesting to note that when the Hornets were first bought, there was a big song and dance about the need for twin engines and range.

I think you are talking about the Hornet Classic here. I recall the song and dance as to why we bought F/A-18a's over the F-16 was based on engine numbers. Defence was unhappy about the single engine failures in the mirage and the pilot loss attributed to it....then theres the guy that dead sticked a mirage onto a road. good job! :ok: If it wasn't for the media, that guy would have been court martialed for ignoring the SOP's.


The JSF 35 is SE and will no doubt be a very whizz-bank piece of kit... at HUGE expense... when we ever get them. And the range is????
In the meantime everyone else is building TWIN engine machines.
Perhaps we should be looking at the Korean one.... would probably save the country a few squillion million $ as well.

Yer I don't fully understand this, but I also beleive the US congress had a lot to do with it.
The JSF program IS providing australian jobs, IS keeping some of our manufacturers up inline with the latest technologies, but at a cost that has left us with a capability gap.

TBH, if I had my way, the US congress would approve the sale (licence built!!!) of Raptors to replace the F/A-18 classics, and f-15 Strike or Silent eagles to replace the F-111.

Sure the JSF is designed to replace the true fighter and the true strike aircraft, but its cost is far beyond that of 1 each F-22 and F-15SE.

IF the US was the true ally they say they are, the F-22 would have been on the table for us..........the JSF has technology far beyond what the raptor has.

Alas,.. poor Pigs. Dead AND buried. What a waste of metals.
Never mind, its only a game bureaucrats can play, its called Fcuk the Taxpayer!

The bureaf*cks are clueless to reality. It ain't a waste of metals...........its a bonus for the dopey suit that came up with the cheapest method of disposal.

totally disgusting.............wheres the bloody vomit icon

[Specnut727]

Would the materials used in the Pigs be difficult to recycle ? In the 1950s my father worked with a crew at Amberley breaking up about 25 B-24s. Great fun as a kid, as we lived in one ! They were cut up, melted down and made into ingots, which I understand were shipped back to the US. Maybe they were recycled back into saucepans !

[Oakape]

And the government keeps telling us we need to recycle to reduce landfill!

Surely a large percentage of those fuselages could have been recycled without giving away any secrets, etc.

[Fris B. Fairing]

None of us like to see aeroplanes destroyed but I'm inclined to think that reverential interment is preferable to watching them being torn apart. The reality is that although 23 F-111s are to be buried, 13 will be preserved. That's not a bad average. Full marks to Defence Materiel Minister Jason Clare for his proactive approach to aviation heritage preservation. It's the most positive development this writer has seen in 40 years.

[Ultralights]

i thought it was only the G models that were to be destroyed, as its was the G's that were purchased from the US, and as part of the contract of sale, they had to be destroyed at the end of their service life. US foreign military sales laws or something

the others will be preserved as gate guardians all over the place. dont forget they are full of some pretty nasty substances. asbestos and the like.

[troppo]

Public Notices today's SMH, something about expressions of interest for 'loan' of aircraft to historical organisations and refers to Austenders website

[Lancair70]

QAM - F-111 (http://www.qam.com.au/aircraft/f-111/most-faq.htm)

[peuce]

Is that the world's largest "Hangi" being prepared? :confused:

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

Re - 'The others will be preserved as gate guardians all over the place. dont forget they are full of some pretty nasty substances. asbestos and the like.'

So is my 'Super 6' fence Mr ultralights.....as is every other fence of the era in Perth at the time.....

T'ain't particularly dangerous though - unless you want to saw thru it or otherwise cut into it without wetting it first to keep the fibres 'from getting up yer nose'...

I'm sure those 111's could be 'sealed' with a coating of some sort to contain the asbestos.

Cheers:ok:

[Ultralights]

what about the copper beryllium?

[FoxtrotAlpha18]

The only asbestos in the F-111 airframe is in the glue used to bond the panels, so it's already 'contained' if you like. :hmm:

There is beryllium and cadmium as well, but not in large quantities.

At the end of the day, while it's sad to see them buried in such an inglorious manner, 12 jets (more than a quarter of the fleet!) will be preserved for display, so it aint all bad news.

[The Wawa Zone]

Buried..... yeah, we all know what's going to happen in about 50 years time, don't we. Complete with a one hour (depending on the average 2060's attention span) TV (or whatever it'll be called then) program.

Would have been interesting if they found all the buried Spitfires when they dug the hole to bury the Pigs.

[PLovett]

I stand to be corrected but aren't the ones being buried the model they got from the US storage facility and not under the original order? I think they are also nuclear capable and therefore the very tight US restrictions on what can happen to the airframes on disposal.

[FoxtrotAlpha18]

Anything "nuclear capable" about them (i.e. celestial nav kit, nuke switching, wiring & racks etc) was removed when they were converted from FB-111s to F-111Gs in the late 80s/early 90s, before we got them.

23 aircraft were buried but we only took 15 Gs, one of which (272) is at Point Cook, so that means at least nine C models were also buried. :sad:

[Fris B. Fairing]

The buried aircraft comprised 1 F-111A (trainaid), 9 F-111C and 13 F-111G.

Rgds

[illusion]

Not that they were buried but there is the issue of the engines being compatable with Iranian F-14's...............................