Re: Schadenfreude?
As time showed we didn't need it and sadly the reality was that had we built more it would have barely left the repair shop. The cumulative meantime between failures for the components of avionics system was a handful of minutes, the engines had a few tenths of an inch of clearance between the engine, and the fuselage structure and fuel tanks. The factory itself needed a week to carry out an engine change. The computing system was completely inadequate for the task. Had the initial specification been for a Mach 1.5 aircraft using concrete runways then the project would have delivered a functioning military aircraft that on a mid life full electronics upgrade might have delivered the low level attack aircraft that was wanted, but the specification was a ridiculous and disastrous fantasy, demanding sustained Mach 2.2 at altitude which hugely complicated the engines and required lots of heat dumping into fuel tanks as well as short grass field takeoffs, as if such an incredibly complex aircraft could ever be successfully serviceable in such conditions.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
