Nice "Pig" dump-and-burn picture Raverdave. A couple of my mates are technicians on Triple Ones. When I was at 76SQN I'd check them out if they visited RAAF Williamtown. They're an amazing looking machine up close. Huge, very obviously a late 50s design but also extremely impressive.
Apparently they're a real bastard to work on, which is pretty typical for aircraft of that era. The designers thought "You beauty! Look at all this new technology we can cram in. Let's do it!", without a lot of thought for how difficult it would be to maintain. For example, they don't have ejection seats, but rather the entire cockpit "ejects". You can imagine what this means as regards to severing control runs, wiring looms etc. There must be explosive bolts and the like everywhere.
Check out this site for excellent airpower articles...
http://www.ausairpower.net/pig.html
...including a convincing argument that the F-111 fleet shouldn't be retired as planned. The "geniuses" in Canberra appear to have been smoking the wacky tobacky again, as their decision to pension off the Pig and get Super Hornets to fill the gap until the F/A-35 is in RAAF service (which probably won't be until around 2020) is looking about as good an idea as New Coke. The price alone is completely outrageous. It appears to be more of a political decision that has been influenced by Boeing.
On a similar note, we may be better off buying at least some F/A-22s, rather than only F/A-35s. By the time the latter are available, it appears the difference in price won't be all that much. There's much stuff on this, as well as cool comparisons with Russian gear etc on that site. It's put together by guys who really know their stuff.
Cheers, Neilster
