Some defence projects end up being run like that. Although it tends to operate in reverse: project A has been running to produce the Ultimate Fighter for 20 years, but that's taken too long, so a slightly scaled back project for Acceptable Fighter is launched. Ten years later, neither is finished, so project Desperate Stopgap fighter is launched. Another few years on and an actual war breaks out, so Obsolete Fighter With Guns Taped To It is used to do the actual fighting until the losses are unacceptable and all the preceding teams are galvanised into producing actual results.
The V bombers were more a case of missiles? Oh, we never thought of those, let's make an inspiring Pathe newsreel and pretend they are still cutting edge.
Though your tale is a pretty close summary of the political story underneath cancelling Supersonic Harrier and TSR2 for F111, and the Buccaneers and Phantoms we eventually ended up with. Though you missed the opportunity beloved of politicians to merge Acceptable Fighter with Acceptable Naval Fighter into one aircraft and end up with White Elephant that barely flies, and certainly doesn't float. :)
(e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars , but also applied to a lot of early WW2 and things like the UK V-bombers)