by Kris Osborn, Warrior

For every aircraft which successfully blasts into the sky in support of the US and allied militaries, there are more fighters, bombers, drones and surveillance planes which never cross the threshold into full operational status.  In some cases, industry competitors lament a crushing loss and some retrospectively question the wisdom of a number of decisions.  For example, there was never a US Navy carrier-launched variant of the F-22. Why not? Certainly quite an idea was considered. What about Northrop’s Y-23 offering which lost out to Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor?  

The X-47B is perhaps an even greater mystery, as it made history last decade as the first drone to take off autonomously from a carrier. Following its historic success as a breakthrough platform, the promising, first-of-its-kind Northrop X-47B stealthy aerial refueler seemed to vanish into a mist of uncertainty. There was never a clear reason given for its disappearance, apart from possible budget concerns and the emergence of the soon-to-be-operational MQ-25 Stingray carrier-launched refueler. 

F-111B

Beneath the headlines and the visible threshold of these high profile programs, there was an experimental carrier-launched follow-on to the US Navy’s 1960s and beyond F-4 Phantom II. During the 1960s, the F-111B was developed by General Dynamics and Grumman in support of a joint Tactical Fighter Experimental with the US Air Force. The concept was to engineer a common fighter able to perform a range of different missions; the F-111B was designed and produced with forward-leaning technologies for its time, to include variable-geometry wings, afterburning turbofan engines and long range weapons and radar. 

Ultimately, however, the F-111B was never produced, unlike the successful US Air Force F-111 Aardvark, for a variety of reasons. What could have been a Navy variant of the Aardvark wound up dissolving into a developmental haze leading to a cancellation. The reason for the cancellation, however, is clear and self-evident as it can be explained in a simple word — “speed.” 

The F-111B never came to exist because it was out-performed by the lighter, faster and eventually iconic F-14 Tomcat. The F-111B had developmental problems and did not develop as a platform able to sufficiently dogfight, so the plane was replaced by the F-14 as a full production program. Some F-111Bs were used for training before the program was entirely cancelled, and it seems it would be shortsighted to call the platform useless or irrelevant.

Even if a program is cancelled, its design, construction and integration likely influenced, inspired and helped development of platforms which evolved into superior systems … such as the F-14 Tomcat.  The Navy likely more fully recognized the importance of speed and dogfighting as a result of discovering limitations with the F-111B. Therefore, the nearly unparalleled speed and agility of the F-14, compared to other aircraft of its time, seems to have in some measure resulted from discoveries made building the F-111B. Furthermore, the 1970s, 80s and 90s were times when the ability to dogfight was at an all time high. Prior to the arrival of the F-35s long-range sensing, targeting and “fusion,” close-in air combat was regarded as an ultimate priority regarding air supremacy. While dogfighting remains important today, the range, fidelity and precision of fighter jet sensors and weapons are making dogfighting less relevant. 

The F-111B also contributed to the external configuration of the Tomcat. The F-14 Tomcat flew with a “swing-wing” configuration similar to the F-111B, and the F-111B’s inability to dogfight successfully likely contributed to why the F-14 became known as the world’s best dogfighting air-to-air Naval fighter for many years.  

It is often the case that cancelled programs wind up outliving themselves to inform, assist, help and inspire very successful future developments, so it would not be surprising if the longer-range radar, wing configuration and weapons delivery technologies initially woven into the F-111B proved critical to the development of the F-14.

Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University