AIM-54 Phoenix missile

"R" wrote in message
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The Navy liked this idea so much that they started the VFX program in
1974, but so the Air Force couldn't say the Navy copied them, the
Navy chose the F-18 (larger development of the YF-17) in early 1975.
Sometime in late 1976 Northrop started a program to find a buyer for
its land based F-17 Cobra.

The Navy program was VFAX, not VFX, because attack was always part of the
plan. They were replacing A-7s as well as F-4s, after all, and could not
afford a second pure fighter on carrier decks. But Congress directed them
to use one of the Air Force LWF candidates, reasoning that these were
already tested and would not require as much development effort. The Navy
didn't much care for either design, but opted for the YF-17 as making the
best of a bad situation. In effect, they were hiring McDDonnell Douglas
(now teamed with Northrop) to turn the YF-17 into a carrier-compatible
aircraft. It seems that McAir essentially designed a new plane with a
striking resemblance to the YF-17 (that may be an exageration, but only
just). This became the F/A-18.

Northrop then tried to market a land-based version of this new aircraft as
the F-18L. Though lighter than the carrier-based F/A-18, this was still
heavier than the old YF-17 Cobra. They did use a YF-17 as a marketing tool
for the F-18L, but the production aricraft would have been rather different.

Joe Baugher's history of the F/A-18 is very valuable on these issues:

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher4/f18.html

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