Originally Posted by
melmothtw
Well, the F-111 was a metre shorter than the A-5 and three metres narrower with the wings swept, so I wouldn't agree that size is what killed off the F-111B for the US Navy.
But size does mater, as tdracer pointed out hangar size is an issue, and so is "spotting" or "spot factor", basically footprint. Yes the Vigilante was large (and so was the A-3 and the E-2), but in most applications there would only be 4 RA5C Vigilantes aboard (and more commonly only 4 A-3 tankers and 4 E-2's).
Using the common air wing model with 2 fleet air defense squadron/fighter squadrons with 12 twelve aircraft each, or even with just one heavy Fleet Air Defense squadron with @12 aircraft, the 12 (or 24) F-111B's would have taken up a tremendous amount of real estate. This would impact the number of other aircraft the airwing could carry. The ultimate replacement the F-14 also had a large spotting factor, but could do just about everything (except loiter time) much better than a F-111B.
"Size" also implies weight, and the F-111B had significant weight issues.