Rob Thompson

The FB and the C model were very similar, but the C was actually an A model with FB wings and landing gear. The hump in front of the windscreen on an FB wasn't a satellite nav system - this thing was designed between 1964 and 1967, before such things were available. It was called an ASQ-119 Astrotracker, and it was essentially an analog computer controlled sextant that coupled to the Mark IIB inertial navigation platform. No foolin', and I never saw one in nine years of working on them that actually worked worth spit.

By the 90's they were using the 131 pod. IIRC, we phased out the 119 in 1982, so I don't believe it was ever used in combat. That doesn't mean we never used them for real, it just means nobody talks about it - I remember one specific occasion where we launched missions from Sigonella across to Libya to see just how good their defenses were. In any case, by the time Eldorado Canyon came along the 131 was the only pod in use on USAF 111's. Reminiscence follows - Loading those things was a pain, unless you were the one driving the jammer. We had (at least) three people to do it - the jammer driver, and two spotters. When the jet is fully fueled, it's really low to the ground, and the underside is sticky and greasy - crawling under there and prepping the pylon and removing the cover for the cable was guaranteed to leave you a mess, not to mention the snap on cannon plug you had to get connected properly after it was hung, with no space for your hands. On the other hand, the jammer was a blast to drive, with rear wheel drive and steering, and this was the only time us avionics guys got to do it.

I have the 1966 Revell 1/72 kit that can be built as an A or a B - I'm not going to use the B radome, if you want it.

Joining the choir, yes, they have the labels reversed. If you choose to use the 119, make sure to get a picture - they were white and black, not OD green. The main radomes were front and back, and on the front of the underhang - but there were some other spots I don't accurately recall.

Dunno about Upper Heyford, but at Lakenheath we used ALQ-119 pods on the F models until about 1982. White with black radomes, v16 or 17 (had a little hump under the forward end), and mounted aft between the engines.

It was a testbed; the ECM equipment had been removed from the right-hand forward bay and replaced with the Fairchild-Schlumberger FDAPS system and an Ampex 16 track tape recorder for data acquisition. But I remember it was mainly used for chase and photo of other test aircraft, specifically the 1st production FB-111 AMP aircraft we were testing at the time. We also had a similarly painted T-38 for chase and photo for things like the A-10 test aircraft, that didn't go all that fast. The paint was automotive Imron, and it would come back with the paint peeling off in strips after high speed flight. The reasons for the race car paint job are partly tradition, partly high visibility. Just as the NASA aircraft got custom paint, so did ours; but it also needed to stand out in photos, hence the outrageous colors.

I used to work on this aircraft at McClellan AFB in the mid 80's. The fuselage was identical to an A model; it was converted to an FB. It was generally referred to as Bomber-1. The major difference between this aircraft and an A model was the longer FB wings and the avionics; I don't recall whether it had the P3 or the P7 engines, but they looked the same from outside, anyway. When I worked on this aircraft, it was painted in a white-red-black scheme as seen at the bottom of the page here - https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/13-july-1968/ - you can clearly see the translating cowls. The aircraft is now on static display at the McClellan aerospace museum, and can be seen on Google maps. That view might be useful, as the wings are swept back and really show the difference between the fighter and fighter bomber wings. It has been repainted in the old FB paint scheme, unfortunately. One other difference - it did not have the 20mm cannon in the weapons bay, as most A models did. Instead, it had the plain doors and the mount for the SRAM inside.