pr00ne,
Some one certainly will!
Not only will I fault his logic, but his facts and recall too.
We'll start here...
"only 100 or so were built before the program was terminated."
Sorry for the wrong number being posted, my bad. I was referring to the F-111A of which 158 were built including 17 preproduction aircraft that were later productionized. All were retired by 1982. The F111B was never built, too heavy and not to the USN's requirements.
The F111C was the export version built for Australia, 24 were purchased and in 1982, then the last 4 surviving USAF A models were bought by Australia and converted to the C version at a later date.
96 D versions were bought by the USAF which were upgraded from the earlier A version. There was air intake problems, but moving the intake and using a more powerful TF-30 engine solved the engine stall problem.
Then there was the E version that was built when the D version was delayed. It used the new air intake but the less powerful TF-30 engine. 94 were built, some located in England, all were retired by 1995.
50 K version F-111s were ordered by the UK, but the order was cancelled when the price went up.
653 were built, and they served until 2010.
Will you be sorry your recall is bad as well?
Oddly, one of the first F-111A model crashed when the swing wing structure failed leading to schedule delays while corrections were made. At least the F-35 never got off the runway in Florida when it failed.
The first 6 production F-111As were delivered to a Tactical Fighter Squadron for training and gaining IOC. Then they were shipped to Vietnam to see how they worked in actual combat. Only 3 came back. The lost 3 were due to aircraft malfunctions. It then took 3 years to achieve full operational capability as there was an outrage in the US at the time over the unwarranted early deployment to Vietnam.
Everyone hopes the USMC has made a better IOC decision for the F-35, only time will tell.
The reason the F-111 was known as
McNamara's Folly was the fact the two selected finalist were General Dynamics and Boeing. A design review board selected the Boeing version as being the best except for the engine, The USAF review board also selected Boeing as being the best to fit their needs. However, Robert McNamara ignored both and select the General Dynamics version because it had more common parts between the A and B versions, of course the B USN version was never built. It must have been McNamara's Ford CEO experience that influenced his thinking…
Hope this clears up logic and facts for the F-111…