One of the best fighters ever built, the Grumman F-14 was born when the General Dynamics F-111B (for which Grumman was prime contractor) failed to meet the U.S. Navy requirement for a long range carrier-based interceptor aircraft.But to understand why the Tomcat was developed, it is necessary to explain why the F-111B was conceived and why missed to meet the service requirement.In the 1960s the then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara decided that a multi-role, combat aircraft would have been jointly developed by both the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and the U.S. Navy. The following program was called Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) and was aimed to satisfy the requirements of the two services with two variants of the variable swing wing General Dynamics F-111. The F-111A was a land based low-level bomber for the USAF, while the F-111B was an interceptor armed with six AIM-54A Phoenixmissiles for the U.S. Navy.
