[tarheelswamprat]

...and destroy the tooling. What's the reason for this? Seems you can plunk it down in the desert somewhere and just sit on it.

It seems like it would have been wise to keep enough of the production capabilities to where in a pinch production could have began without having to rebuild all the necessary machinery, molding, etc, to start production again. I don't know why it was done.

Political arrogance and bureaucratic pettiness. It's a way to insure that "their" decision can't be undone or reversed by a change in agency management or political regime. I'm certain if you asked, however, they'd give you all sorts of accounting gibberish and BS logistical cost/benefit arguments.

The same thing was done with the tooling for the SR-71 Blackbird, I believe, and whoever made that decision should have their butt kicked.

[AFreeBird]

he same thing was done with the tooling for the SR-71 Blackbird, I believe, and whoever made that decision should have their butt kicked.

I don't know about the SR-71, but IIRC, its was McNamara that ordered the Tomcat tools & jigs destroyed.