I can not remember the F 111 ever being referred to as the 1-11, it was always mentioned in Australia as the "one hunderd & eleven" and always written "111".

Whlie there are a few technical problems with the Swing Wing, Barnes Wallce was correctly brilliant in that it does allow an enormous flexibility in capability - are there any other current Swing Wing planes?

Aussie airmen refer to the plane as "the pig" - I know a few guys who used to work on them. The plane fits the Aussies requirements of range (particularly well!) and flexibility of platform capabilities - with the now genuine offical talk of the beasts being retired, the replacements will now mostly not be able to reach Indonesa and leave a "package" there... :-)

The flyover and "dump and burn" (at night), with the subsequent "climb and vanish" has become a faily common part of Aussie public events, and the beast thus holds a place in the hearts of many of us, especially the little kids... :-)

So perhaps we need a new song about this part of Ausie heritage.

The plane many years ago became notorious for doing a secret and quick photographic run over Canberra and returning with a highly detailed picture of a particular politicans desk, allegedly the papers on it could be read. The fact that if this guy's office could be photographed that precisely, that it could also be targetted with something much more noisy was not lost at the time... :-) Can't remember the exact year, someone else may...

Robin