I was hoping for Liberator.

Wouldn’t have minded something from a WW2 fighter, like Mustang or Thunderbolt

Realize the USAF was seriously looking at YF-12A long before using F-111 as anything but a bomber, I think you would compare the F-111/AIM-54 (Phoenix) combination to F-12A/AIM-47 (Super Falcon). It’s pretty obvious that MiG-31 was more along the F-12A concept than trying to mimic F-111.

Lesson learned by Syria is heed the warnings. There may have been reason for an accident when supporting our ghosts

Good god, you’re dense to believe anything less than djcross posted. Iran was allowed to replace existing centrifuges for modern ones a huge exponential leap in capacity. You would be emphatically stupid to make comments contrary to reality.

Telescopic capabilities of F-14 outclassed anything on F-15. And until the Cold War was practically over IFF technology was pretty weak and overly burdensome to use in multinational air campaigns

Speaking of which, where… The Nose looks to short and behind the cockpit is not just shapely but also has an aerial fin before blending up into the tail.

The T-50 had to move the same aerial from an almost identical location

McNamara was a fool, there is no doubt there. However, his push for the F-111 over continued production of the F-105 was not an error. His push to standardize the F-111 across the military was a huge mistake, no doubt about that. The F-111 does not get the credit it deserves. It was the singular best strike fighter in the world for 20 years (sorry the Su-24 did not have laser designation and precision weapons capability, the “F” did). The F-111D had the world’s first digital bombing navigation system (note to the SVP-24) when it worked. There were huge design flaws- it could really only carry two LGB and still have full low level sprint capability. But, the F-111F and D might have been the most survivable strike aircraft from the 1970’s to late 1980’s. One could argue that the F-111 was as effective as the F-117. There were few fighters that could catch it on the deck, and paired with the EF-111, it made a difficult deep strike/interdiction target.

Let’s face it, post Cold War the iconic Western weapons systems that threatened classic Third World despot dictators – save for maybe B-52 – we’re all pretty much retired. F-111 could literally reach out and touch them at range with high precision at the time. A good chunk of the Navy – really the crown jewels of western culture – was cut and immediately scrapped. The large dumb bomb stocks were recycled. The mini nukes were decommissioned. Much of our strategic missile force, especially the Peacekeeper, was scrapped. The cuts to the manpower and bases. The merchant marine corps. Everywhere.