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And yet objective reality (the US didn’t actually buy production F-12s, Congress didn’t actually pay for them) and common sense illuminates the likely folly of F-12s in service.

Non-specific hand-wavy “Production changes” won’t magically change the nature of the airframe, the engines etc.
It was inevitably going to have low availability rates, extremely high maintenance hour to flight hour ratios.
In that context claims that relatively low numbers of F-12s could replace larger numbers of more conventional aircraft with substantially higher availability rates comes across as bordering on the absurd.

The historic context is also very important.
The “bomber” threat to the continental US in this period was relatively weak (which the US had by this time realised) and was to essentially remain so until at least the late 70’s and the emergence of the Bear-H and its cruise missile armament (with the Blackjack to follow). Instead the Russian ICBMs were the clear primary (evolving) threat. There wasn’t a particular need for F-12s, particularly given the much higher priorities that needed to be funded at the same time as any theoretical F-12 buy.
The F-12 in service is a nice “top trumps” fantasy but a deeply unrealistic one.

<blockquote data-quote="kaiserd" data-source="post: 572338" data-attributes="member: 10308">And yet objective reality (the US didn’t actually buy production F-12s, Congress didn’t actually pay for them) and common sense illuminates the likely folly of F-12s in service.Non-specific hand-wavy “Production changes” won’t magically change the nature of the airframe, the engines etc. It was inevitably going to have low availability rates, extremely high maintenance hour to flight hour ratios.In that context claims that relatively low numbers of F-12s could replace larger numbers of more conventional aircraft with substantially higher availability rates comes across as bordering on the absurd.The historic context is also very important.The “bomber” threat to the continental US in this period was relatively weak (which the US had by this time realised) and was to essentially remain so until at least the late 70’s and the emergence of the Bear-H and its cruise missile armament (with the Blackjack to follow). Instead the Russian ICBMs were the clear primary (evolving) threat.&nbsp; There wasn’t a particular need for F-12s, particularly given the much higher priorities that needed to be funded at the same time as any theoretical F-12 buy.The F-12 in service is a nice “top trumps” fantasy but a deeply unrealistic one.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="kaiserd, post: 572338, member: 10308"] And yet objective reality (the US didn’t actually buy production F-12s, Congress didn’t actually pay for them) and common sense illuminates the likely folly of F-12s in service. Non-specific hand-wavy “Production changes” won’t magically change the nature of the airframe, the engines etc. It was inevitably going to have low availability rates, extremely high maintenance hour to flight hour ratios. In that context claims that relatively low numbers of F-12s could replace larger numbers of more conventional aircraft with substantially higher availability rates comes across as bordering on the absurd. The historic context is also very important. The “bomber” threat to the continental US in this period was relatively weak (which the US had by this time realised) and was to essentially remain so until at least the late 70’s and the emergence of the Bear-H and its cruise missile armament (with the Blackjack to follow). Instead the Russian ICBMs were the clear primary (evolving) threat. There wasn’t a particular need for F-12s, particularly given the much higher priorities that needed to be funded at the same time as any theoretical F-12 buy. The F-12 in service is a nice “top trumps” fantasy but a deeply unrealistic one. [/QUOTE]

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