In December 1969 an F-111A lost its left wing in a low-level pull-up. The cause was a hidden manufacturing flaw in the steel wing pivot fitting, and the fix was a fleet-wide cold proof test at minus forty degrees.
#F111 #Aardvark #SwingWing #AviationHistory #InsideWarMachines
Sources: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (General Dynamics F-111A); USAF Aircraft Structural Integrity Program / AFHRA records of the F-111 cold proof test. Illustrative 3D reconstruction; slow motion, separation, flaw size and test rig illustrative.
source
Variable-sweep wings for low-level speed, or a simpler fixed wing you can trust: which side are you on? 👇
Swing they remind me of the f14
this animation is terrible i’m tired of ai
Holy AI
So the pilots died😢😮
the Roblox F-111
They stopped making swing-wing planes in the 1980's.
When swing-wing designs were thought to be the better option during that period.
Fixed or swing?
One swept-wing aircraft suffered one failure in all these years of flight, and you ask if we should keep them?
What a dumb question.
If the wing fell off it was hardly mid flight, it was the end of the flight.
You completely missed the opportunity to discuss the emergence of the modern Damage Tolerance philosophy, which can be traced directly back to this very incident.
The General Dynamics Aardvark huh?