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Posted (edited)

Greetings from the beautiful island of Malta, right in the heart of the Mediterranean!

 

I present to you my HobbyBoss 1:48 General Dynamics F-111C Aardvark, which was built using the FB-111A tooling with decals from Hawkeye Models. The kit is painted as Aardvark A8-132, which began flying as a test platform with the RAAF's Aircraft Research & Development Unit (ARDU) from 1979 to 1998. The Pig now sits on public display at the South Australian Aviation Museum in Port Adelaide, Australia. One fun fact about this airplane was that 132 participated in the 2007 Red Flag exercise while wearing the overall grey colour scheme, in which she flew with No.1 Squadron RAAF, the ‘Fighting First’.

 

A website article and build video can be accessed via these links here: https://malcsmodels.wordpress.com/2024/03/30/building-hobbybosss-148-f-111c-aardvark/ 

 

In April 2024, I participated in a model exhibition organised by my local IPMS on the island at the Malta Maritime Museum in Birgu with the 111, where I was presented with the Medal for the Highly-Commended Award.

 

F-111 nose

 

F-111 right view

 

F-111 top left view

 

F-111 top rear left

 

F-111 top view

 

F-111 centre and tail section

 

F-111 left view

 

F-111 front right

 

F-111 front left

 

F-111 rear view

 

 

 

Edited by W3lly_Nightraider
Addition of photos
  • Like 34
  • Love 6
Posted

Nice! I really miss seeing these in the skies. Yours is a nice tribute, although I do really like the original SE Asia scheme most of them are statically displayed in now. A8-132 has its ARDU scheme of two greens, tan and white.

  • Like 1
Posted

Nice pig!  I like the open electronics bay.  :)  The F-111 was a great sight to see at airshows.  I remember as a kid watching them do 'zippos' where the F-111 would jettison fuel between the engine exhausts and then ignite it resulting in a 30-50 foot fiery plume behind the aircraft.  Awesome. Thanks for bringing back some good memories.   

  • Like 1
Posted
6 hours ago, Tomcat101 said:

Nice pig!  I like the open electronics bay.  :)  The F-111 was a great sight to see at airshows.  I remember as a kid watching them do 'zippos' where the F-111 would jettison fuel between the engine exhausts and then ignite it resulting in a 30-50 foot fiery plume behind the aircraft.  Awesome. Thanks for bringing back some good memories.   

It was described as a 'dump and burn', the crazy trick that the 111 had up its sleeves!😍

Posted

Extremely impressive F-111!!

The commendation award was well deserved! 👏

I'm sure I've read somewhere why the aircraft is nicknamed "pig", but I can't remember the reason. 😬

  • Like 1
Posted
7 hours ago, kapam said:

Extremely impressive F-111!!

The commendation award was well deserved! 👏

I'm sure I've read somewhere why the aircraft is nicknamed "pig", but I can't remember the reason. 😬

It's because of the way the snout on the nose was designed and that the Aussie 111s were equipped with a Terrain-Following radar. That's why the RAAF Aardvarks nicknamed the "Pig" by aircrews and ground technicians

Posted

Great looking F-111 there, really nice work 

  • Like 1
Posted
9 hours ago, kapam said:

Extremely impressive F-111!!

The commendation award was well deserved! 👏

I'm sure I've read somewhere why the aircraft is nicknamed "pig", but I can't remember the reason. 😬

Because of the shape of the nose it was referred to by the U.S. operators as the "Ardvaark", an African animal that finds it's food by rooting around in the ground. Ardvaark is Afrikaans for earth pig. The Aussies simply shortened it to pig.

The U.S. ECM version became the Sparkvaark.

  • Like 1
Posted

Beautifully done!

  • Like 1
Posted
8 hours ago, RedhillPhil said:

Because of the shape of the nose it was referred to by the U.S. operators as the "Ardvaark", an African animal that finds it's food by rooting around in the ground. Ardvaark is Afrikaans for earth pig. The Aussies simply shortened it to pig.

The U.S. ECM version became the Sparkvaark.

The EF-111A's official name was the Raven. The latter was nicknamed "Spark-Vark" because it was an F-111A Aardvark airframe fitted with an AN/ALQ-99 Electronic Countermeasures system.

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