F-111.net

05/10/2025

EF-111A

04/10/2025

Via Code One Magazine
Spring 1987, Vol.2 No.2

03/10/2025

An FB-111. Not sure what the white pod is.

02/10/2025

For those that served at Upper Heyford.

Have to say that I'm a bit confused and slightly 'torn' on this development news affecting a former USAF base in the UK!

Among a number of new national schemes for creating new UK towns/villages etc will be what seems to be the development of the rest of the former RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. Developer Dorchester Living has produced a glossy brouchure with dream-like visionary images and the promos of thousands of new homes (there is also a potential rail link). All this looks set to be on the former technical (active runway/Quick Reaction Alert and bunker areas of the former WWII and Cold War Base notably occupied in its final years by F-111 bomber aircraft.

Okay - homes are apparently much needed in the UK.

Now Upper Heyford is a base of which I was very fond in its operational days. And it was a pretty unique base with its distinctive Cold War Hardened Aircraft Shelters (HAS)in which the planes were stored. When it closed the official body Historic England gave it (in 2006) a Scheduled Monument listing (Number: 1021399).
( https://lnkd.in/dAkT3t7F )

So how is the being dealt with by the developers of the non-flight line side of the base? That's concern 1 as I'm not sure.

Concern 2 - on 17 September 1992 (33 years ago) two F-111 pilots, Major David 'Mike' McGuire (WSO) and Captain Jerry Lindh (Pilot), 55th Fighter Squadron, were killed when their F-111E crashed at RAF Upper Heyford.

They had tried to eject in the aircraft capsule but were too low. There's a small tree and often some American flags (including over the years a couple taken by me) planted near the end of the runway. I'm awaiting to hear how the developer proposes dealing with that. They weren't the only deaths over the decades but they are representative of the many who gave their lives I would argue.

So much to consider and better understand how developers will deal with that and with the Cold War Heritage Listing, the existing base museum they have (I would certainly want to see that greatly expanded and given significant long-term funding) let alone the wider development impact on this beautiful part of Oxfordshire.

I'm sure they will tell me I'm wrong but it this point it just seems to me that once again heritage is getting pushed aside in the rush to build more homes.

PS - the author (with more hair then!) standing at the end of the RAF Upper Heyford flightline after the base runway was closed (the 'X' gives those flying a big clue) in 1993.

01/10/2025

Via Code One.

25/09/2025

RAAF Recruiting Booklet
Circa-1970’s.

13/09/2025

13 September 1993: F-111 crash claims two aircrew in northern New South Wales

Did you know that on this day in 1993, a RAAF F-111C based at RAAF Amberley crashed resulting in the tragic loss of its two aircrew in northern New South Wales?

On the evening of 13 September 1993, a F-111C (A8-127) of No 1 Squadron on a night strike training mission crashed at approximately 7:15pm about four kilometres west of Guyra in northern New South Wales. Operating out of RAAF Amberley, the aircraft was on a night simulated strike mission attacking the Guyra Meatworks; the first of several targets to be attacked during the mission. The crash occurred only 23 minutes into the sortie. The aircraft impacted the ground disintegrating in an explosion with wreckage scattered over a 1km area.

Perishing in the crash were the two RAAF 1 SQN aircrew FLTLT Jeremy ‘Jez’ McNess (pilot) and FLGOFF Mark ‘CC’ Cairns-Cowan (navigator). Mark Cairns-Cowan was born in Sydney in 1965 and joined the RAAF in 1984 as an Officer Cadet. Completing Navigation training in 1985, he was posted to 37 SQN flying C-130E Hercules aircraft before transferring to F-111’s at Amberley. The pilot, Jeremy McNess, aged 26, was a RAAF Academy graduate.

A similar crash occurred six years earlier when a F-111C crashed near Tenterfield on 2 April 1987 with the loss of FLTLT Mark Fallon (pilot) and FLGOFF William Pike (Navigator). Of the 28 F-111C’s and 15 F-111G’s that served with the RAAF, seven F-111C’s and one F-111G aircraft were lost in crashes claiming the loss of 10 aircrew over its 37 years of service.

Lest we forget.

Image of F-111C A8-127 in flight courtesy of Department of Defence Online Image Gallery.

11/09/2025

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