The F-111 actually turned out to be a pretty good aircraft...for the RAAF. The company I retired from made parts for the F-22. We lost that work when it was cancelled. We made parts for the Boeing JSF entry (the Monica). It lost the competition. We made a bunch of stuff for the Comanche stealth helicopter. Twenty years of R&D and billions of dollars and the whole project was scrapped. And then there was the V-22...
If you broke all this waste down to dollars per taxpayer, what do you suppose it would come to?
Actually it was a pretty good bomber for the USAF, and a major electronic warfare platform. But it was a total bust as a fighter, which it was originally designed to be, and the Navy never bought a single plane. The fact that they rescued it, doesn’t make it any less McNamaras Folly.