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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: F111
Message-ID: <1990Aug28.042951.29834@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 28 Aug 90 04:29:51 GMT
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: Scott.Johnson@p0.f7.n391.z1.fidonet.org (Scott Johnson)
> HS> ... (The F-111B's specs, which 
> HS> it mostly met, were much more demanding than those of the F-14A 
> HS> that replaced it in Navy plans.) 
>
>        The F-111b was a DOG, don't let anybody tell you different. Its
> trans/super sonic manuverability was so bad they were worried if you
> could turn it at all...

So what?  Ever looked at the specs of the aircraft it replaced in Navy
plans, the Vought (?) Missileer?  The Missileer was basically a *subsonic
transport*, somewhat along the lines of the S-3 Viking, with a big radar
and a bunch of big long-range missiles.  This was at the time when missiles
were king and dogfighting was out of fashion.  The Navy requirement was 
for a fleet air-defence interceptor, basically a missile platform.
Maneuverability was explicitly *not* a consideration.

For a missile-platform interceptor, the requirement is to carry a big radar
and a heavy load of missiles out to a good long standoff distance, and
loiter there for quite a while.  The F-111B did this extremely well.  The
F-14A carries a smaller and lighter radar and a considerably lighter load
of missiles out to a shorter distance for a rather shorter loiter.  For
the missile-platform-interceptor mission, it is seriously inferior to the
F-111B in almost every way.  (It does win, I think, on ability to operate
from smaller carriers, something the F-111B was not good at.  Of course,
the USN doesn't operate any of those any more...)

At the time (possibly still), the USN had two groups of combat pilots,
basically the bomber ("attack") pilots and the fighter pilots.  It is
not at all clear that the fighter pilots would have been the ones to
fly the Missileer, since it was not at all what they were trained for.
However, they definitely were the ones assigned to evaluate the F-111B.
Assigning a bunch of pilots trained for dogfighting and supersonic
maneuvering to evaluate a missile-platform interceptor was almost
guaranteed to produce highly negative reports, regardless of the merits
of the aircraft.

> ...trying to make
> it a fighter was the biggest mistake Mr. Macnamara (sp?) ever made.

The idea that the USAF's long-range tactical bomber might also make a
good missile platform for the Navy wasn't inherently ridiculous.  Both
missions basically called for long range, heavy payload, and long
endurance.  However, it *was* a major mistake, because too many of the
details in the specs were incompatible.  (For example, the USAF's foolish
demand for sustained supersonic speed at sea level, and the USN's equally
foolish demand for an escape capsule, were badly incompatible in a plane
that had to fit on Navy carrier elevators.  The escape capsule demanded
side-by-side seating, making the aircraft wide, while the really fierce
supersonic requirement dictated a very slim aircraft.  The importance of
these requirements can be judged from the lack of escape capsules on all
subsequent Navy aircraft, and the lack of sustained-sea-level-supersonic
performance in all subsequent USAF bombers.)  Worse, the two services had
absolutely no incentive to cooperate on producing a plane they could both
live with, and so they didn't.

                                         Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                          henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry