[Hillarys Gate Cult]

We lost an FB-111 from Plattsburgh in the early 80s. Sad story but what made it worse was the MSM. There was a news wire story about a US Navy ship that had female sailors nude sunbathing on deck. The story was reported nationwide that our plane crashed taking pictures of the ship. My father told me about the news report and I informed him that we lost our plane at night and well over a thousand miles away from the ship. The MSM somehow married both unrelated stories.

[GeronL]

was the wire story even true?

[Texicanus]

The F-111 has always drawn negative press because there were so many variants of the basic design. If any version failed to meet it’s design criteria, the press played on that. The whole F-111 program was made to look like a failure.

It was a good idea but difficult to develop one plane that could perform the various roles envisioned for the F-111. I think the F-111 (fighter) and the FB-111 (fighter/bomber) were good products. The other versions were scrapped on the drawing board or during development. But time took it toll, rolls changed, materials and computer technology improved, and the world changed.

I don’t think the author of this article did enough research to make the judgements he has made.