As I recall it was F-111’s that Reagan ordered to bomb Khadafi. France wouldn’t allow American warplanes to fly over French airspace so they were sent from England around France and into the Med to Libya.
I don’t remember why carrier based aircraft weren’t used from the Mediterranean.
Libya had some serious anti-aircraft defenses back then. The Air Force was better at penetration raids. It also makes quite a statement when you can fly in from somewhere completely out of reach to your enemy's military, drop your bombs, then fly home again.
By the time Reagan was in office, the “B-111” (USAF had long since modified them away from their original FB-111 and never really used them their “pure fighter” mode) had been worked through its failures (since nothing else was available, they had to use what they had “make it good enough.”
Independent of the FB-111 USAF-USN problems, its fire control radar, fire control electronics, and the supposed common missile all took forever to get right. F-4, F-15, F-16, F-14 (Tomcat) eventually got the combat packages started by the F-102, F-106, FB-111 (etc) together many, many years later.
French opposition against forced them to fly from England, out around Spain through the Strait south of Gibraltar, then over the Libya. By the 1980’s, they could not fly from Navy carriers with USAF pilots who knew the airplane and its systems and its weapons, and the USN pilots who did know carrier landing and who were practiced enough to do it could not fly and operate FB-111’s weapons and plane.
You are correct sir. One aircraft never returned. They flew out of Lakenheath. I had been in the Lakenheath tower in 1983. I started working in the Tower at Travis, in 1984. They had the missing man formation at Travis, while I was the supervisor on duty in the tower. It was impressive.
There were carriers involved in the strike. A-6s and A-7s hit other targets.
the Raven accompanied them for EW, plus they had the best FLIR targeting pod at the time, IIRC. Navy couldn’t execute the mission given the threats.
Navy A6, A7 & F/A18s were involved.
Probably a range or ordnance issue. The F-111 has long legs and could reach targets that Navy jets couldn’t get to without tanker support. Also, there may have been a guided bomb available to the F-111 that A-6E’s didn’t carry.