Any F-111 maintainers here? It has been my understanding that the egress
sysrem
on the plane and its 600+ pryotechnics charges were major maintenance
headaches.

Far from a major maintenance headache, the components that you refer to were
static items that didn't wear out any more than the capsule's, or any other
ejection system's, rocket motor. I'm not sure what information led you to
this
understanding. Can you cite some sources?


Sure. I was an F-4 maintenance officer at RAF Lakenheath UK in the 70s until
the F-111Fs repalced the F-4Ds. We (the Lakenheath maintenenace staff) had
numerous dialogs with the F-111E (IIRC) guys at Upper Heyford not far away.
They showed us the major system maintenance manhour drives and the capsule
pyros were right near the top. All the pyros were time change items and many
required pulling a lot of hardware to access and change. Not a problem on a
low hour plane but as the plane accumulated hours the time change requirements
increased.