On 09/20/2016 12:20 PM, Henry Spencer wrote:
As for the implementation, it was pushing a lot of late-40s/early-50s
technology pretty hard, and so it ended up with big maintenance and
reliability problems. Much of that could probably have been cured by a
major respin on the design -- for example, given the timing, a lot of
the electronics was probably using vacuum tubes -- but that wouldn't
have been a small project. (Convair did try to sell the USAF improved
versions, but at a time when ICBM projects were straining budgets badly
and there was political pressure to limit the USAF's ever-lengthening
wishlist of expensive toys, that was a non-starter.)