I respectfully disagree. Over its 31 year operational career with the US Air Force, the F-111 in most configurations proved to be a very good strike aircraft. It received a bad reputation due to the association with the TFX program. The aircraft was not a failure in its ultimate role with the Air Force, rather the bureacrats failed to see that you can’t put a square peg in a round hole. In the end it was a good Air Force platform...not a sufficient platform for the Navy. The difference with the F-35 is that nobody in the military is demanding an end to the multi-service aircraft concept this time. The military needs to buck up and tell Congress this dog don’t hunt...just like the Navy did with the F-111B. Don’t make the common mistake that the F-111 was a bad airframe for the ultimate role it ended up serving...and once they ironed out the early production/design issues.
The problem was the Air Force wanted a subsonic bomber, and the Navy wanted a supersonic interceptor.
The Air Force would use an aircraft with a thin skin, and variable wing sweep and high lift devices to give a combination of low speed takeoff, high payload, and long range.
The Navy would use an aircraft with a thick skin (for supersonic flight) and variable sweep and high lift devices to give low wind over deck speeds and long loiter time.
The Navy never demanded a capsule ejection system for any aircraft but the F-111B. The F-14 never met the F-111B’s required loiter time at 600 nm from the carrier even at zero nm from the carrier.
The Navy killed the F-111B by the tried and true method of over specifying.
I knew the EF-111 was quite successful in its role and also that the FB-111 took part in the raid on Libya back in the ‘80s but I don’t think the Air Force never really gave the plane the credit it apparently deserved.
I didn’t mean to criticize the Aardvark at all, in fact, in 1968 when I was stationed at Ft. Benning, Ga. an F-111 did a high speed, low-level pass over the airfield, followed by a full power climb-out till all you could see was a ball of fire in the sky. The noise was deafening. Talk about impressive.