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Equipped with the F-111, with a combat radius approaching 1000nm, and armed with pinpoint accurate laser or TV guided weapons, the 82nd Strike Reconnaissance Wing at Amberley is the RAAF's "Mailed Fist", its primary means of projecting airpower into hostile territory. These potent aircraft can inflict substantial damage upon the vital economic and military infrastructure of any potential opponent.
Technology Explained- F-111 AUP Explained Part I
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New Tusks for the Pig: The F-111 Avionics Upgrade Programme Part 1
The RAAF’s F-111 Avionics Upgrade Programme (AUP) is finally underway, after a full half decade of definition and often very partisan debate. The long overdue systems upgrade will result in a substantial improvement in aircraft combat availability while also reducing crew workload through modern cockpit display technology.
In many respects the RAAF had no real choice in its pursuit of the upgrade, as much of the F-111A/C’s analogue avionic suite was simply no longer operationally supportable, many modules designed in the early sixties using then mature sixties technology. Wearout aside, simple random component failures will result in a constant demand for sixties technology electronic and electromechanical components which are, needless to say, increasingly difficult to source and thus increasingly expensive with time. In practical terms this means that greater stocks of spares must be held, if repair turnaround times are to be kept within sensible limits.
Under peacetime conditions this situation is hardly tolerable even if very high life cycle costs are accepted; under wartime conditions increased flying hours will gobble up the spares stocks available leading initially to the cannibalising of grounded airframes and eventually to the grounding of the fleet. With a small fleet of aircraft the operational lifetime of the fleet will be measured in weeks if not days under such conditions, disregarding combat attrition.
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