Why are swing-wing fighter jets obsolete?
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They make the aircraft more complex, resulting in it being much more expensive to operate and requiring a lot more maintenance to fly. The main advantage is that they can give you wing geometry that works well for both good low-altitude subsonic and high-altitude supersonic flight characteristics.
One of the main factors in why they’re obsolete is that aircraft are no longer the primary launch platform for most nuclear weapons. Every known nuclear-armed state besides the United Kingdom still keeps some that are launched from aircraft, but ballistic missiles launched from land and submarines are now more strategically important for most of them (exceptions may or may not include India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea).
Let’s take two aircraft as examples:
1. The B-1 Lancer was designed to replace the B-58 Hustler (retired in 1970) in a supersonic nuclear strike capability. It was originally cancelled because of the expectation that they would have the B-2 with stealth capabilities that would be more useful than speed in precision nuclear strikes. However, because of the delay in B-2 development and the fact that it was so expensive, the US Air Force bought 100, the last of which are scheduled to be retired in the next few years. Its nuclear strike role was removed and it was repurposed for carrying huge amounts of conventional munitions, which it proved to be extremely capable of doing (it was the main aircraft in terms of munitions expended in Iraq and Afghanistan, alongside the much more numerous F-16). However, a multi-role fighter can do this fairly well and if you do need the greater range or munitions capacity of a bomber, the US Air Force typically likes to address both of those by putting more jets in the air, whether it’s a refueling aircraft to extend the range or more fighters to carry bombs. And both refueling aircraft and fighters have a wider range of stuff that they can be used for than a supersonic bomber.
2. The F-14 Tomcat was possibly the last true interceptor, definitely the last naval interceptor. The primary role of an interceptor is to take off, climb fast, and fly fast in a straight line at bombers. The expected main threat to a US Navy carrier group in the 1960s was in the form of the Tu-22M bomber (another supersonic variable-sweep wing aircraft), and the expectation was that in a strike against a carrier group (a carrier group is a carrier plus a few cruisers and destroyers whose job is to keep it safe, with cargo ships and maybe a submarine following it around), a certain portion of the missiles fired would have nuclear warheads. Taking a nuclear strike would be highly inconvenient for the operations of the carrier group, so they wanted something fast enough to engage fast incoming aircraft. The expansion of satellite and cyber reconnaissance coverage to a much greater degree than existed in the 1960s means that it’s possible to detect this kind of strike no later than when the planes take off, rather than possibly not before it’s close enough to appear on radar, so speed is less important (plus, the missiles fired by fighters are fast enough anyway).
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