That’s very true. It’s ridiculous that for an aircraft to survive the acquisition process, it has to promise to be everything and then go out and “prove” through testing that it can do everything. And when it inevitably doesn’t, all your naysayers from competing companies that didn’t get the contract, anti-military politicians, and their lapdog media sit and write dissertations on what a horrible failure it is in every area. If we did everything the media told us to, we wouldn’t have fielded a single new weapons system since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Another problem is over-complexity.
All the great missiles we equipped a/c with in RVN weren’t worth a damn, with the occasional exception of the Sidewinder. Nothing worked as well as the gun they finally put back in the Phantoms.
Also, enroute to RVN, carriers and their air groups would often stop in Hawaii. The famous “HANGman” (Hawaiian Air National Guard Korean-era F-86 driver with nothing more than .50 cals) would meet all the hot USN Phantom pilots over Mana Loa for some air to air. He would even go against them 4-1 (4 Phantoms v. the HANGman!)
Nobody ever beat the HANGman in his 20 year-old beat up Sabre!