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This made me reflect that I hadn't actually thought critically about the phrase (at least, commensurate to how often it's used). For fun, if you think the purpose of a system is what it does, write what you think that means, before reading Scott's critique, then write if you've updated your opinion. For example:
(Spoilers go between two sets of "||")
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Notes -
You forget they are both considered maintenance nightmares and are both outclassed by fixed wing designs in all their missions by now. And I say that as someone who loves the bone and the tomcat.
Oh no, I have not forgotten the maintenance nightmare aspect, but thats not exclusive to swing wings (ie the C-5 galaxy makes both the B-1 and F-14 look easy).
No, the original argument against variable geometry (aside from systems complexity) was that changing the sweep, chord length, and span mid-flight would result in an extremely taxing and dangerous variance of flight characteristics that would drive the pilot mad, and then into an undesirable air-ground interface. The claim was that this is designing the optimum plane on paper instead of paying attention to how they are actually flown, and to be fair this was entirely valid logic if you based it on a) the F-111s development and early flight testing and b) publically available info about variable geometry aircraft.
But of course the DoD and the MIC had actually learned a few things, and the Tomcat and Bone both turned out to be excellent performers with long service histories. If you look at the whole batch of variable geomtery aircraft all born around the same time, with the F-111, MiG-27, Tu-22M, and the Tornado the idea as a whole seems to actually have produced highly successful aircraft, despite their inherent complexity.
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