"Mike" wrote in message
om...
Remember the famous World War 2 raid when those B-24 bombers were
placed on the USS Hornet and sent to bomb Japan ?

I just got done reading that in 1965 the United States landed C-130
Herculees planes on a US aircraft carrier.

So that got me thinking. I'm not a Navy man or Air Force man, so this
question may sound crazy to some of you, but please at least address
it.

Let's talk hypothetically here. What if, at some point late in the
cold war the United States decided to stage a " Doolittle " type raid
on some country by having a small number of F-111 bombers take off
from a giant Nimitz class carrier. Could it have been done ?

The F-111A had a lot in common with the Carrier capable F-111B Navy model
and might have survived a carrier landing, but it would not have been a good
idea.

The F-111B had a much shorter nose than on the landbased F-111s to allow a
better view of the boat. The F-111B also had some small flaps located on
the wing roots that were present but locked up in the F-111A. These were
required to lower the approach speed a couple of knots to meet the Navy
spec.

The landbased F-111s had less robust tailhooks, and the hooks could not be
raised in flight once released.

I'm pretty sure all F-111s had the same landing gear.

Jim Howard (former EF-111 EWO)
jim [at] grayraven [dot] com