John

There was a small group (6 or so) of 111's sent to SE Asia. Not sure
if the were based in SVN or 'Out Country'? Believe 'out country'.

Their missions were scheduled for low level night flight into NVN as I
recall? In any event, the first three or so they sent out, disappeared
with no calls or any thing. Took off and never came back.

This was pretty early in the 111's life and high speed low level
flight on the terrain following system was having problems. Best guess
was that the system failed and flew the bird into the ground (at 4-500
mph). I saw some films of testing and the bird would fly right up to a
hill and pull up and climb the hill and then roll inverted and over
the top of the hill pull positive G's and then roll right side up
going down the back side of the hill. Took guts to set there and watch
the system do it's thing at 500 +/- mph and 50 ft.

The remaining birds were brought back to the States and were not sent
back to the best of my knowledge.

May be some other old timers who were closer to that project than I
was and can give more definitive data.

Big John
Pilot ROCAF



On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:01:05 -0500, Dweezil Dwarftosser
wrote:

C J Campbell wrote:

"Jack" wrote in message
...
| On 2004/01/18 19:56, in article , "C J
| Campbell" wrote:
|
|
| ...I had a friend who was shot down in Viet Nam with a single
| bullet that a farmer fired from a hunting rifle, of all things.
|
| Ah yes, the Golden BB.
|
| And how was it determined, CJ, that this magical event had occurred?

The NVA claimed that is how it happened, anyway, and the pilot believed it.
They also made the pilot pose for pictures with the farmer. The aircraft was
an FB-111.

No FB-111s ever flew in SE Asia - during any period
of the Vietnam War.

Although he got out all right and he saw his EWO's chute open, he never saw
the EWO again.

Neither F-111s nor FB-111s used EWOs in the second seat.
The small number of EF-111s which DID use EWOs - didn't
exist during the Vietnam War. We used EB-66s in that role
during that time period.

Your information is, at best, erroneous.

John T., former MSgt, USAF