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Todjaeger

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
Stampede said:
Correct
Really the aircraft was incorrectly named.
F stands for Fighter.
As in F 16 , F 15
F 18 and now F 35.

Really it’s a dated term and description.
Most of the teen series have evolved into multiple aircraft.
To make things more confusing variants with in the above have evolved special subsets with specialised roles in either air defence or strike .
F15 being a good example.
None the less they all have a multi role capability.

Back to the Fllll , it was kind of hoped it would be a multi role plane for both the US airforce and navy.
Navy stayed with the F14 and showed little interest with the F111 and Airforce persevered with it.
Its design made sense for the era but I think the F tag at the start was more politics than what the plane was actually used for.
That said as beyond range missiles became the way forward it would of been interesting if in the 80s and 90s if the F111 was given the avionics to carry both bombs and the full range of AAMs
available at the timetable.
Such an aircraft would of proved a formidable long range multirole platform and may of become what the F15 has evolved into today

Like many an aircraft

If only!

Cheers S
Click to expand...
Just a reminder that the F-111 was from a design from the generation before the teen series of US fighters like F-14, F-15, F-16, F-17 & F-18 and therefore the naming and numbering convention used at the time as a little different. The F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber as an example, was originally to be the F-110 Specter before getting re-designated. Other designs which preceded the F-111 were the F-106 Delta Dart interceptor, or the F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber. My personal favourite though is the SR-71 Blackbird, which was supposed to be the RS-71 but IIRC a certain US political figure misspoke...

As a side note, much of the avionics developed for the F-111B was further developed and featured in the F-14 Tomcat, which filled the fleet air defense role for the USN that the F-111B was originally intended for. The basic F-111 aircraft was originally planned to have variants covering the fighter and strike/bomber roles. This is why the FB-111 also entered service, though it ended up getting replaced in the strategic bombing role once the B-1 bomber entered service. Once the strategic bombing role was gone, then it became used for more tactical bombing which was no longer done by B-series aircraft.

Now me being me, I personally think the that F-35 should be more properly designated as the F/A-35 since it very much have both fighter and attack/strike roles.

As for giving the F-111 the avionics for air-to-air missions... that actually did happen, before it was decided not to field such variants. Given the costs involved in continuing to operate the aircraft (and why it was completely removed from US service by 1998) trying to re-work the 1960's design seems like it would have been a waste of resources. Despite that, IIRC a certain Australian air power advocacy group had members that has developed at least a paper design referred to as a Missileer...
 
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