But when was it ever not a royal cluster ****?

F111-F14? No, that ended badly. WTH were they thinking landing an aircraft that heavy on a carrier (F111), then the F14 engine problems?

B1? Seemed to be more about spending more money so all the money spent on the first version wasn't "wasted".

B2? 500 million a copy is what I remember back when it was unveiled. Today's numbers are probably a lot bigger. And if we were designing this, what was the B1 for and what could it do that the B52 wasnt?

F102, had to be completely designed because it couldn't go fast enough.

F101 was originally designed to launch nuclear air-to-air rockets...lol...the lack of practicality of some of these things just blows the mind.

Just a few that come to mind.

Yes, there are some that seemed to have been designed relatively efficiency and successfully, but it seems more like blind luck rather than good planning, given how many have been close to total screwups. I'm sure we could list more.

I think there is more to the story though, as in the "actual cost" of these things, and how it's essentially using the government to "create jobs", so there's a feedback loop that's created that attempts to feed itself, even if that's not the outright goal of the defense contractors and all the jobs that are created. You either want the best stuff possible or you take a calculated risk and reduction in capability. Having "it all" is pretty expensive...