Introduced in 1964, the F-111 featured innovative technologies such as sweep-wing design, afterburners on turbofan engines, and terrain-following guidance systems. -Despite initial setbacks during ...

The first variable-sweep wing aircraft ever put into production was the F-111 Aardvark, a supersonic interdictor that served with the U.S. Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force. But the F ...

The F-111 Aardvark’s fuselage could lug bomb ... represented the first production airframe featuring a variable-sweep wing configuration that could be altered mid-flight. The “Aardvark ...

However, the fighter jet tested poorly, and several flight tragedies caused by faulty equipment, such as its left wing detaching mid-flight, tarnished the F-111's name early on. Eventually ...

including the weapons system and the variable-sweep wing configuration. This was considered to be essential based on experiences with the F-111 and its very complex electromechanical flight ...