Firstly, the aircraft made it's first flight sixty years ago!
It was way ahead of anything else in its day!
You can bang on all day about its short range/lack of fuel but it did the job efficiently. (Seven minutes airborne in a Mk3 but ten minutes logged!)
Its role developed over its operational life and it would have undoubtedly benefited from a weapons upgrade but that never happened!
Redtop and Firestreak were large and when fired on the edge of their envelope, could be unreliable.
It never had a six gun fit! The F2/F2a had permanent upper Adens and could fit a gun pack to replace the missile pack so a total of four Adens!
I could bang on picking holes in your thesis Fonsini, however my concentration span is no more than three minutes these days! Suffice to say that for those of us who operated the aircraft, it was a huge adrenalin fix!
