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Mirage
IIIO A3-16 in the immediate foreground with A3-15 behind it. They share
the Williamtown flight line with several F-105 Thunderchiefs from the
6441 Tactical Fighter Wing which was based at Yokota, Japan. The F-105s
arrived from Guam on 3 October and returned to Guam and Yokota on 18
October 1965. These aircraft were amongst many foreign aircraft which
had deployed to Williamtown for Operation Pacific Concord One
in October 1965. During their visit, the USAF encouraged the RAAF to
deploy Mirages to Thailand to support operations in Vietnam by the F-105s
which had been optimised for the strike role and although they retained
a Vulcan 20mm multi-barrel gun for strafing, they lacked a gyro/radar
predicting gun sight for air-to-air combat. At the time, the RAAF had
only one squadron of Mirages, No. 75, which was still working up to
operational status and for this reason the request was denied. The
following table lists the serial numbers of the six F-105s that participated
in Operation Pacific Concord 1.
QUEENSLAND
AIR MUSEUM |
Picture:
Ian Whisker