Like the Air Force, the Navy also needed a smaller, cheaper fighter. The F-111 and F-14 were large and expensive, while the F-4 was becoming obsolete. The Navy thought the YF-17 would be ...

But by mid-1967, resistance from the Navy fighter community came to a head. Retired Rear Admiral Kenneth “Pete” Pettigrew recalls attending a briefing on the F-111 during his initial F-4 ...