Captain W.R.Liggett, an FB-111A pilot from Plattsburgh AFB, NY, describes a practice low-level attack on targets in Florida in 1973.

I've been flying the FB since the spring of 1971. The performance of the FB-111A in the air is as impressive as it sounds on paper. How does SAC use this fabulous aircraft? How are the most capable avionics in the world brought into play? These questions can best be answered by describing an actual training flight of three FB-111s from the 380th Bombardment Wing at Plattsburgh AFB, NY. On this three-aircraft mission, a simulated low-level attack on targets in Southern Florida, I am to be the pilot of the third FB-111A. My navigator is Capt. Joe Maguire of Steamboat Springs, Co. At 4 a.m., the two-man team that will launch our aircraft begins servicing the FB and seeing to its particular needs. Another two-man team loads the computer tape for the mission into the FB-111's "memory". Our day begins at 7:00 a.m. with a final weather briefing at base operations. We then file our flight plan with the Federal Aviation Agency's regional Air Traffic Control Center and head for the flight line to make a preflight check of our aircraft. We fire up the engines, taxi out to the runway, and line up in formation, anticipating the clearance from the tower to start our roll. The brief period prior to take-off is always an anxious time. Many men have worked long hours making our three planes ready to arrive here at the hold line. We share a feeling of exhilaration as we reach this point, one brief moment before the action begins. It is here that all the logistics and labor and endless training come together in a single purpose. The lead pilot calls a 60-second "hack" to start the countdown to brake release. We sit there, hands on throttles, senses taut, like big cats ready to pounce. Engine roar at 80 per cent rpm. At Lead's count, "five, four, three, two, one", brakes are released, and we roll onto the runway.

At exactly 9:30 a.m., the three planes shoot down the runway at seven and a half second intervals. The pilots of the second and third FB's meet the mark with precision simply by lighting their afterburners seven and a half seconds after seeing the afterburners light on the plane ahead. The "burner" on the FB increases thrust from 24,000 to 40,000 pounds and gives the aircrew enough of a "kick" to jam them back in their seats. Acceleration is very quick. Outside the cockpit the scenery starts to blur. The nav and I check instruments for engine power and performance. Rotation speed comes fast; I ease the stick back and the nose lifts off smoothly. We are airborne. I raise the gear with my left hand, keeping my right on the control stick to hold correct pitch angles and wings level. My left hand moves from gear handle to flap handles to bring flaps and slats up as we accelerate through 290 mph. Then I reposition the wings from 16 degrees to 26 degrees of sweep. As speed approaches 400 mph, I retard the throttles to cut off the burner and reduce the power setting to continue our climb. As I make radio contact with Burlington Departure Control, Joe completes his checklist to match my configuration changes and scans his radar to locate the two FBs ahead of us. It has been about 90 seconds since we left the runway. In less than 10 minutes we level off at 23,000 feet, stacked in neat trail formation, heading south. We complete our check of the bombing and navigation system near Albany, NY. Continuing south, we begin a precision navigation exercise called a "nav leg" which will guide our flight down the East Coast.

It is a beautifully clear, cold winter day. Inside the snug cockpit, under a greenhouse canopy, I can't help but feel a certain euphoria, a magic carpet sensation. We can see clear across Manhattan. Over the Statue of Liberty, it looks as if all the nation's ships are heading out to sea. Conversation with air traffic controllers on the ground is clipped and businesslike as they monitor the myriad flight paths of commercial, military and private planes. Meanwhile, our inertial system's gyros and digital computers hum in unison, accepting the directions of the computer program. Sometimes we tend to take the capability of the advanced avionics in today' new aircraft for granted. The sophistication of these "black boxes" is really remarkable. While Joe and I busy ourselves with course changes, speed, and other mission variables, the electronic sensors in our avionics systems are measuring every tiny movement of the aircraft, compensating for each deviation by issuing direct commands to the flight-control surfaces. If one of the electronic circuits malfunctions, it is automatically ignored while the other two circuits carry on. The navigation system alone is so sensitive and accurate that the FB's parking spot on the ramp has to be surveyed to give the system the exact coordinates of the mission starting point.

At 11:30 a.m., off the coast of Georgia, Joe and I and the crews of the other two FB-111As begin to get a bit anxious as the time nears for inflight refueling. But right on schedule, a KC-135 Stratotanker makes radio contact. It is from the 306th Bombardment Wing at McCoy AFB, near Orlando, Fla., and is navigating toward us at 500 mph. Our speed is the same, so we are closing at a rate of almost 1,500 feet per second. Following the image of the KC-135 on his radar scope, the lead navigator relays course corrections to the formation, adjusting our flight path toward, but slightly offset from the tanker's. At the 1,000 mph closure rate, the distance between us diminishes rapidly. When the tanker is exactly 21 miles downrange, Lead directs him to turn onto our heading. I spot the KC-135 halfway through its turn about 10 miles out. When he rolls out, the bombers are five miles astern, now three abreast in loose visual formation. In a few minutes, the lead bomber is in position, immediately behind and below the refueling boom, ready for hookup. The KC-135 is to offload 72,000 pounds of JP4 jet fuel to the three FB-111As, refueling them one at a time in just 32 minutes. The tanker's boom operator inserts the refueling boom into the small receptacle just behind the FB's cockpit. It is up to us to fly in very close trail position behind the tanker. The FB is a dream to refuel in flight. Its flight controls are specially designed to adapt automatically to almost any altitude and airspeed condition. The feel of the stick is ideal, neither sluggish nor jerky. The plane is relatively easy to hold. As in any aircraft, however, aerial refueling requires strict pilot attention to every small change of position between tanker and receiver. To help the pilot with this task, the KC-135 is equipped with a director light system on the underside of its fuselage. The system signals the receiver pilot with lights to advise him of his relative position in the refueling "envelope". Of course, the pilot doesn't have to rely solely on external references to judge his position. After many hookups and hours of refueling practice, a pilot develops a certain feel for the correct position behind the boom. "Disconnect," calls the boomer over the radio. My plane is the third to be refueled. We slip below and away from the tanker with two minutes to spare. With a radioed farewell, "Good day, good flight," the KC-135 turns for home. As we cross the Florida peninsula, St-Petersburgh is clearly visible below. Out over the Gulf of Mexico, the formation will split up to enter the low-level portion of the flight at twelve minutes intervals.

One, two, three, in we go! Leveling off at 1,000 feet, we check our TFR and computer system. It's good. I engage three switches, and the FB noses down smoothly to 400 feet above the water as it banks toward the next navigation point. Speed is about 490 mph. That's 0.65 Mach. Dead ahead is a gorgeous big cabin cruiser. We pop up to 500 feet to fly over it at legal and courteous altitude . Ahead is the coast of Florida. Joe scans his radar returns and confirms that the inertial system and computer have us right on time and course. Now we are over sandy, almost treeless, terrain. Our TFR examines its profile and occasionally signals the autopilot to climb or descend to maintain 400 feet clearance above the ground. I check the clock. It's ten minutes until we make the first target run at the remote, mobile bomb-scoring site. I make a last-minute check of target and bomb-run drawings and maps. At 400 feet and 650 mph, I've got to know what to look for and where to spot a timing point or target. Joe calls for acceleration. I radio the bomb-scoring site so they will be ready for us. At the initial point inbound, I sweep the wings back to sixty-five degrees. Our speed is 650 mph, 0.85 Mach. Our altitude is 400 feet above a swamp that seems to be throwing flocks of birds at us. We are on the target run.. I scan for the timing point, a set of canal locks. Suddenly, there they are! I hack the clock. We are right on course. The navigator places radar cross hairs on the aiming point. Computers refine their data, and the autopilot steers precisely. Outside the cockpit, the scenery is a blur. Inside, cooling air surges about. Instructions and acknowledgments fly across the cockpit. Seconds are clicking away. Everything checks....visual, timing, and radar aiming. Radio tone on....ten seconds....tone off. I call "Bombs away." Of course nothing drops since this is a simulated bombing, but the scoring site tracks and scores us electronically with radio and radar. They can tell exactly where real bombs would have hit. I bank our FB to the right toward target two. The clock is driving again. Forty seconds later,....tone on and off. the second bomb run is complete.

Retard throttles, sweep wings forward. We head for the next bomb run; one more target to "attack." We take a short breather. It sure is good to have this superb avionics equipment to carry the load. Orange groves slip by below, thick mossy ponds resist the dry season, newly bulldozed housing developments remind me of Florida real-estate ads. Time passes quickly. It's three minutes to the initial point, the beginning of the final run. Joe checks his radar and confirms that we are on course. I call the mobile scoring-site, and here we go again. New timing points, new times and headings, speed accelerated, and wings reswept. Two tones, the radio crackles, "Cheerio. See you another day." Climbing out steeply over southern Georgia, we hear a friendly voice from Jacksonville Air Traffic Control Center. He sets an easy pace as he climbs us through Miami-bound tourist traffic and hands us over to the next sector north. We level off at 29,000 feet. Joe and I exchange grins. We're homeward bound. There are two hours to the high-approach fix at home plate. The navigator and our computer tape guide us on yet another precision nav leg. It's 3:00 p.m., but no time for a siesta. As we approach the northeast, clouds have moved in, gray and flat, low and lumpy. We press on for Plattsburgh. Burlington Approach Control transfers us to our Air Force controller for final approach. While Joe reads the checklist, I configure the FB for landing: wings forward, gear down, slats and flaps down. We decelerate to 150 mph, our approach speed. The voice of the ground controller is smooth and reassuring, rather like a narrator closing a story. We are on a glide path, on course. Through the clouds, there is the field straight ahead. Snow flurries herald our arrival. The touchdown is smooth as silk,....seven hours, forty minutes....rollout.....brakes.....nose-wheel steering engaged. We taxi to the ramp. Our crew chief beckons us to our parking place. The engine turbines wind down. I creak down the ladder.....knees don't want to unbend.....feel feet on the ground. Our crew chief hurries over to greet us, "How did it go?". "Mission accomplished." I reply. "Flown as briefed."

Following pilot training, William entered B-52 training and, at the time of his selection for the FB-111A program, was a B-52 instructor pilot and commander of a select combat crew. He commanded 107 combat missions in the B-52 is Southeast Asia. Assigned to the FB-111A in April 1971.

This story has been published in Air Force Magazine and the 'Champlaner' in 1973, and was submitted by the author for inclusion on FB-111A.net.