Авианосный вариант F-111

Was the Navy’s F-111 Really That Bad?

Pentagon leaders insisted that an Air Force fighter-bomber would make a great Navy interceptor. They should have asked the Navy. //  www.airspacemag.com

 

Traditionally, each service developed its own aircraft to meet its specific requirements. But in early 1961, newly appointed Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara came up with a scheme to save millions of dollars by using a common airframe for the two very different missions. He was determined to check the escalating costs of ever-more-sophisticated weapons systems. The result was a warplane that neither service particularly wanted, one branded by critics as a “flying Edsel.” Former test pilot George Marrett remembers it simply as “the worst aircraft I had ever flown.”

 

Retired Rear Admiral Kenneth “Pete” Pettigrew recalls attending a briefing on the F-111 during his initial F-4 Phantom training at Naval Air Station Miramar in the fall of 1966. During the presentation, a manufacturer’s representative was telling the gathered aviators how great the new F-111B was going to be, only to be repeatedly interrupted by instructor pilots insisting, “It’s not a fighter—cancel it!” The rep left in a huff, says Pettigrew, but not before calling out, “You better start liking it, ’cause you guys are gonna fly it!”