Maybe. I recall stories of VC being able to toss things into the air to cause the F-111 to automatically perform loop-de-loops or some such.
Oh yeah they really lambasted the F111, and then the F18.
For some really hot airplanes that never were, look at all the fighters that were to be developed using the Pratt 4360 radial engine, but got canceled because of the wars end and the jet-engine.
IIRC, the F-111's Terrain Following Radar's failure mode was to do an abrupt pitch-up maneuver, and apparently it was prone to a lot of false alarms. The pilot had an override switch (called "the paddle," I think) that he could use to override failure mode and apparently 'hitting the paddle' had become automatic reaction to sudden pitch-ups on stateside training flights. Unfortunately, Southeast Asia has lots of karst topography and several F-111s were supposed to have been lost by being flown (on override) into the sides of rock towers.
That failure mode maneuver may be what you're thinking of. The VC's making use of it by 'tossing things in the air' sounds apocryphal, though.