From: Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Date: Sun Jul 13 1997 - 10:13:42 MDT
On Sat, 12 Jul 1997, Michael M. Butler wrote:
> F-111s were developed _by order_ of Macnamara, who *knew* that the
> life cycle costs of a "joint" vehicle *had* to be less.
And it wasn't suited for the bomber role either; the idea being that it
would survive by using terrain-following radar to fly in under the air
defence radar. Lockheed were pushing for fighter and bomber derivatives of
the SR-71 -- flying at 70,000+ feet and Mach 3+ to simply outrun any
defences -- and conducted tests to prove that the YF-12 (the fighter
derivative prototype) could happily cruise along up there blowing F111s
out of the sky as they crawled along at ninety feet. Not to mention that
something like 50% of the F111 bombers stationed in Britain flew
themselves into the ground in training.
Lousy aircraft, like most political designs. Particularly lousy terrain
following radar.
Mark
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