Comment Re:Bugs... (Score 2) 184
Every new aircraft gets slated to hell though, people were saying the harrier jump jet was useless for similar reasons. The idea of a VTOL aircraft useful in both air to air and air to ground was an impossible ineffective pipe dream according to many.
Yet it's still in use by the US now and has seen more combat than most other jets having been engaged in everything from the Falklands, to Iraq (both times) to Afghanistan.
You only really know how great an aircraft is when it's tried and tested in combat, everything up until that point is hearsay. Many predicted the UK would get slaughtered trying to take the Falklands back because sending a carrier with the laughing stock in some circles which was the Harrier onboard meant they'd get destroyed from the air, yet when it came to the Harrier ended up proving it's worth in defence of the fleet taking on some at the time perfectly capable Argentinian aircraft like French supplied Mirages and Super Etendards, US supplied Skyhawks, and Israeli supplied Daggers. The naysayers were proven wrong, and the harrier was proven an aircraft that was extremely effective and is still so right up until this very day where it's still active in Afghanistan.
The harrier isn't alone in this story, many other aircraft have been through the exact same thing of being slagged off as worthless only to turn out extremely effective. I think even some of the UK's iconic and most successful World War II aircraft even had their vocal doubters early on.