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Taming the Aardvark.

Everything about the Aardvark being designed as a low level bomber tells the story of why the F-111B would have been such a dismal failure in USN service, had they continued to develop it instead of scrapping the Program and pivoting to Grumman Design #303, which became the F-14 Tomcat.
 
One of the things that was neat about the F-111, it didn't have a max operating speed. It had a max operating temperature. :playful:

In theory, you could push the thing until the canopy and windshield started to melt. :running:
In reality, there was a 300 second count down timer that would start if the skin temperature got to a certain value.
The planes that flew on Eldorado Canyon did their egress from Libya at something like 660 knots at 100 feet AGL.
The speed was low because they didn't want to run their afterburners until they got out of SAM range. :playful:

The SECDEF (McNamara) wanted a common platform for the Air Force and Navy. The Navy had plenty of bombers, so they could use the -111 as a high speed interceptor (which they also already had). One strange hold-over in the pilot's manual stated that it was better to land the Pig the Navy way (slam it down) rather than "float" it on to the runway. :indecisiveness:
 
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