Editing General Dynamics (section)

===Aviation in the 1960s===
During the early 1960s the company bid on the [[United States Air Force]]'s [[TFX Program|Tactical Fighter, Experimental]] (TFX) project for a new low-level "penetrator". [[Robert McNamara]], newly installed as the [[United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense]], forced a merger of the TFX with [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] plans for a new long-range "fleet defender" aircraft. Since GD lacked experience designing naval aircraft, it partnered with [[Grumman]] to develop a version for [[aircraft carrier]] operations. After four rounds of bids and changes, the GD/Grumman team finally won the contract over a [[Boeing]] submission.

The land-based [[General Dynamics F-111|F-111]] first flew in December 1964; the carrier-capable [[General Dynamics–Grumman F-111B#F-111B|F-111B]] flew in May 1965, but proved overweight and underpowered for the navy's needs.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/13_sep2018-cancelled-f111b-1-180969916/|title=Was the Navy's F-111 Really That Bad?|work=[[Air&Space Magazine]]|author=Robert Bernier |access-date=April 22, 2020}}</ref> With the naval version not accepted, production estimates for 2,400 F-111s including exports were sharply reduced, but GD still made a $300 million profit on the project.<ref name="history2" /> Grumman went on to use many of the innovations of the F-111 in the [[F-14 Tomcat]],<ref name="history1" /> an aircraft designed solely as a carrier-borne fighter.