Could it have been completed if they kept throwing money at it or was a lost hope? Would it have been any good?
>>65075680Anything can be completed if you throw enough money at it.>Would it have been any good?Probably not. The age of the dedicated attack aircraft ended in the 70s and the limitations of a carrier air wing makes the versatility of multi-roles even more valuable.
>>65075695It was supposed to be a multirole though, they bought the Super Hornet as a stopgap between the F-14 retirement and the A-12 entering service.
>>65075680If I recall correctly one of the major problems was an absolute US-fucking-Navy classic: make late changes to the requirements they wanted way after the design had been locked down, which then led to cascading issues. Clients who do this deserve to be shot. F-35 shows that ultimately if a design is sound enough the real savings comes from just buying in bulk. If you cancel a program the whole thing is fucking wasted, or if you cancel after a small buy the price per plane is high, whereas if you just commit to pumping the bastards out then even a high program cost can get amortized. Avenger's cost seems almost quaint by the standards of what came after.At the same time, it must be said that McDonnell Douglas was having big corporate management issues by the late-80s/early-90s. So I don't know if they could have brought anything ambitious over the finish line as they were. They infected Boeing with it after the merger and look what happened there.May Jack Welch burn in the deepest pits of hell.
>>65075709Everything I've read says it was a replacement for the A-6.
>>65075805>May Jack Welch burn in the deepest pits of hell.what are you talking about anon? jack welch never worked at mcdonnel douglas or boeing. he joined ge straight out of university.
>>65075805Boeing rotted from the head. Phil Condit had started making every bad cultural change McDonnell is blamed for causing before they merged under his leadership.
>>65075841Correct, Grumman had come up with picrel (non-afterburning F/A-18 F404s) and the Pentagon stealth mafia tried taking a different tack with Dorito, result was USN ended up with the Stupid Hornet
>>65075993His management theories spread beyond his immediate reach and more or less fucked most worthwhile American companies. They are a template for looting the value out of companies and leaving only hollow rent seeking behind.
The F-18L could have stood a chance if Northrop had made a demonstrator.
>>65077195>F-18LSee:https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/65024548/#q65044403
>>65077297Was this ever an actual Air Force project or was it just a cover for the SR-71?
>>65077310It was the Air Force's interceptor variant of the Central Intelligence Agency's A-12 photographic overflight spyplane. Announced in early 1964 by president Johnson, later that year officially displayed at Edwards Air Force Base.(SR-71 multisensor USAF reconnaissance platform came along two full years after the YF-12 interceptor project. First SR-71 prototype flew in December 1964, same day as the first mated flight of the M-21/D-21 hypersonic drone carrier.)
>>65076249Honestly, I'm surprised the Stealth gang didn't just try to slap RAM on the A-12. Even if it's not full stealth you'd get a nice low observable bomber.
>>65077297ICBMs took this from us.We could have had squadrons of these things intercepting whatever (inevitably) insane Valkyrie equivalent the Soviets would have cooked up.
>>65078368It wouldn't have performed better than the A-6F.
>>65077317I thought the YF-12 only really existed to give plausible deniability for the CIA flights. That's why they acknowledged it's existence before the earlier spy plane version.
>stealth flying wing naval attack aircraftHow the hell was this thing not a Northrop Grumman project? It's straight down their alley.
>>65078525>only existed becauseWrong.Air Force had a long range interceptor requirement in 1960 (after cancellation of the XF-108), an RB-12 bomber version for SAC was also studied. USAF was in contract discussions completely separately with Lockheed/Skunk Works about their aircraft requirements; CIA was Skunk Works' main client for the A-12.>acknowledgedYes three separate aircraft were under development as of 1963, two of them for the Air Force. The SR-71 evolved as a two seat lengthened fuselage higher gross weight multisensor version of the RB-12/R-12 studies. (An earlier 1962 concept of Kelly Johnson himself for a "universal A-12" that could be field-modified for different missions wouldn't proceed because of the divergent SAC-USAF and CIA requirements.) By 1963 also, the large magnitude cost of the CIA's A-12 program had begun to draw attention of gov budget oversight and momentum grew for the Air Force's version of the reconnaissance aircraft to take long term precedence, in other words the CIA having their own costly (that would in a couple years anyway be obsoleted by low Earth orbit satellite capability, as would the SR-71 upon its entry into service) Mach 3 reconnaissance airplane in tandem with the USAF's separate different-mission version wouldn't be each tolerated or funded over the long term.
>CIA flightsThe A-12 didn't begin operational service with CIA on spyflight missions until 1966, it had a protracted full three years of test flight and systems development from 1963 to 1965.A-12 didn't even fly at Mach 2+ to triplesonic until mid-1963 because the J58 engine wasn't available until that year; its maiden flight April 30, 1962 was with J75 powerplants. First actual flight with a J58 mounted in one nacelle only was October 5, 1962 and first flight with two J58s in each nacelle was January 15, 1963; it took most of that year to even get the brand new engine to operate properly, not to mention aerodynamic problems with the airplane, stability, nacelle inlets etc. at speeds above Mach 2. Several crashes occurred and all of the years 1963 and 1964 were spent in risky flight test development, not until 1965 did the A-12 program begin to appear 'ready' for operational service in its design photographic overflight mission.
>>65078542Northrop was devoting practically all of its resources making what would become the B2 work.
>>65078505Maybe not in terms of max speed, turn rate, or acceleration but the flying wing design has extremely low drag and a lot of lift. That should have given the A-12 lots of loiter time and payload.
>>65078586>loiter timeTrue but is it an important characteristic for a long range interdiction/strike aircraft that needs to hit and get out quickly? Payload, I doubt it would have exceeded the A-6 which was extremely capable; a major loss to the USN's carrier air wing.
>>65078599Only if you get detected. Stealth would displace speed and maneuverability as the main defense against SAMs. In this, the Avenger 2 was ahead of it's time.
>>65078622checked, agreed but what's the point? Not all of the USN carrier air wing long range strike aircraft's missions are going to be against land targets. Stealth isn't the solution/answer to everything, or the maximization of capability.>defense against SAMs>displaceSpeed and maneuverability remain critical for any aircraft. Not a tradeoff characteristic >ahead of its timeIn concept (for a naval air wing) perhaps. Because it was never built/flight tested we'll never know>if you get detectedThat's a function of time. Low level flight non-stealth aircraft are perfectly capable of 'being detected' at the last minute, neutralizing the target, and getting tfo effectively.
