The program exposed many unexpected technical problems, beginning with a troublesome drag engine inlet condition.
Harvest Reaper, a training program for pilots and combat crews, began in the summer of 1965. General Dynamics would build the prototypes of what was then called the TFX, incorporating a unique variable-geometry feature that enabled the fighter to sweep its wings back for supersonic flight, and forward for takeoff and landing. Despite the long ruckus, McNamara got his way. Squabbles over the issue reverberated in the halls of Congress for more than a year afterward. Boeing submitted the lowest-cost bid, but General Dynamics finally was chosen prime contractor, over strong congressional opposition. Even before the various competing companies bid on the contract, the political meddling began in earnest. Various incidents early in the process foreshadowed the problems that lay ahead. There was no previous model, no base of experience, to guide the development of so complex a military airplane. To say the aircraft was plagued by troubles from the beginning is putting it mildly. In actual execution, however, the pieces didn’t quite fall together that way. This goal would be accomplished through standardization, a familiar procedure that was used successfully in private industry. commanders’requirements for a plane better capable of bombing targets at night and in adverse weather. Such an aircraft, tailored individually for each service, was designed to save the American taxpayers $1 billion in development costs and simultaneously satisfy U.S. Kennedy’s secretary of defense, first approved an ultra-advanced fighter capable of being used by both the Air Force and the Navy. The plane’s genesis began routinely enough when Robert S. As the war in Vietnam progressed into its final stages, much of the debate swirling around the aircraft became mired in politically driven agendas, compounded by the ramblings of uninformed media. The F-111 was conceived and developed amid controversy. How then could its air power have failed to produce decisive victory in Vietnam? The story of the F-111 fighter-bomber provides some insights into that paradox. No country dared to challenge directly its military superiority, even the Soviet Union.
During the 1950s, the United States developed the most technically advanced military aircraft the world had ever known.