I didn't get a lot of it, but a fascinating story, thanks for posting it.
"the Vark had an incredible range and was a cadillac when cruising along at .95 Mach a few hundred feet above the countryside."
It had terrain-following radar to hug the ground without running into something, too.
I'd say that's when we knew how to build planes, but this -- "our INS dumped and every heading system on my side spun to a wrong heading ... the INS dumped all the time but usually the heading system was rock solid" -- is disturbing. What is INS and why did it fail so much? Darn computers!
What kills me is they retired the F-14 because they were getting long in the tooth and required long maintenance intervals. Now, the brand-new F-35s require 50 hours of maintenance for every flight hour, exceeding that of the old f-14s. Absolutely outrageous and way too expensive if you have to actually fight a war and use them. Never should have moved all our manufacturers out west, imo. Or let pork get in the way of our safety.
| 
