Book Description

The iconic General Dynamics F-111 'Aardvark' - a medium range interdictor, tactical strike, strategic bomber, reconnaissance and electronic warfare aircraft - was one of the more controversial jets ever to fly. Yet despite its inauspicious beginnings it became a highly effective 'under the radar' bomber. As a result of a poorly planned development specification, both the Navy and Air Force were committed, much against their will, to a Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) program which called for a single aircraft - the F-111 to fulfill both a Navy fleet-defense interceptor requirement and an Air Force supersonic strike aircraft requirement. This was impossible to achieve, especially since planners placed priority upon the Air Force requirement, and then tried to tailor this heavy aircraft to the constraints of carrier-based naval operations. The abortive naval aircraft, the F-111B, was never placed in production, whilst the Air Force aircraft, which was produced in a variety of models, had numerous problems, and only the F-111F actually fulfilled the original TFX design specification. This was less the fault of General Dynamics than that of thecivilian planners in the Pentagon whose 'cost effective' inclinations produced the major aeronautical fiasco of the 1960s - and a costly one at that. Acclaimed author Anthony M Thornborough brings the entire F-111 story into one Datafile, looking in depth at all of the variants of the F-111, its difficult birth, its poor combat debut in the Vietnam War, and its final maturity into a potent weapons delivery system. This new work will include hitherto unpublished photographs, technical diagrams and color profiles, which tell the whole story of this incredible machine.