Too Advanced: The A-12 Avenger [Archive] - Military Images Photos Pictures Forums

TankBuster

19-09-06, 14:58

The A-12 Avenger II was an American aircraft program from McDonnellDouglas and General Dynamics intended to be an all-weather, stealth attack replacement for the A-6 Intruder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-6_Intruder) in the USN and Marines. The aircraft suffered numerous problems throughout its development, especially with the materials, and when the projected cost of each aircraft ballooned to an estimated US $165 million, the project was cancelled by then-Defence secretary Dick Cheney in January 1991.
The Navy shifted to buy the F/A 18E, which has replaced the A-7, A-6, and the F-14.
Artists' conceptions and mockups of the craft revealed a Flying wing, like the B-2 Spirit, with a design in the shape of a isocoles triangle, with the cockpitsituated near the apex of the triangle. The aircraft was designed to have two GE F412-GE-D5F2 turbo fans (each producing about 13,000 lbf (58 kN) thrust and was equipped to carry up to twoAIM-120 AMRAMM missiles, two AGM-82 HARMS and a full complement of air-to-ground ordnance, including Mk 82 bombs or smart bombs in an internal weapons bay. The A-12 gained the nickname "Flying Dorito".

Specifications (A-12 Avenger II)

General characteristics

Crew: 2
Length: 37 ft 10 in (11.5 m)
Wingspan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingspan):
Unfolded: 70 ft 3 in (21.4 m)
Folded: 36 ft 3 in (11.0 m)
Height: 11 ft 3 in (3.4 m)
Wing area: 1,308 ft² (122 m²)
Empty weight: 39,000 lb (17,700 kg)
Loaded weight: 80,000 lb (36,300 kg)
Max takeoff weight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Take-Off_Weight): lb (kg)
Powerplant: 2× General Electric F412 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=General_Electric_F412&action=edit)-GE-D5F2 non-afterburning turbofans, 13,000 lbf (58 kN) eachPerformance

Maximum speed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vno): 500 knots (580 mph, 930 km/h)
Range (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_%28aircraft%29): 800 nm (920 mi, 1,480 km)
Service ceiling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_ceiling): 40,000 ft (12,200 m)
Rate of climb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_climb): 5000 ft/min (25 m/s)
Wing loading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_loading): 61 lb/ft² (300 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust-to-weight_ratio): 0.16http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/A-12_Avenger_Concept.jpg/480px-A-12_Avenger_Concept.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/A-12_Avenger_Concept.jpg)

ch1466

06-10-06, 10:25

The reality of the A-12 is that it derives from the Model 100 and Cold Pidgeon studies of the early 1980s and so was likely relatively well founded (configurationally) based on flying blackworld prototypes.
Having said this, I have a lot of questions as to whether the resulting ATA (for really that's all it was at the time of cancellation, an advanced development study shy of prototype hardware) was fundamentally compatible with carrier landings using the aeros engineering we knew at the time (i.e. no tiperators, no spoiler slot deflectors etc.). Flying wings have a very short pitch control couple and -very good- wingloading which, together with the generally low installed thrust, means that the margin between mush with no warning prior to the deep stall, 'power on approach' reckless descenet rates at speed and 'ya wanna fly, let's go fly!' tendency to float is incredibly narrow.
Much too much so for a manned carrier system.
On another note, the overall ideal of the A-12 was the same as that of the A-6 in providing a replacement 10 plane squadron of all-weather heavy attack capability (VAW) was deeply flawed. Though conceptually acceptable durign the early period of the cold war when the nuclear mission was predominant and lolo TF/TA capability allowed for significant penetration capability, by the time of even a 1980's equivalent scenario (Hot War, NATO Centfront with Korean Sideshow) the technology threshold had changed to the point where going under the radar no longer meant safety from advanced SAMs and LDSD interceptors. For which, more than LO was required to secure the ingress/egress routes and provide a degree of TARCAP sweeping. Along with major threats to the carrier itself, the resulting problem becomes one of finding a useful sortie rate:radius missions which don't require conventional F/A-18/F-14 platforms to 'escort' the Avengers regardless of protection.
The Tomcat could make the ATAs maximum distance from the boat, barely. But it couldn't do so without tanking and that would have meant that the USN was operating on the same 5-7hr cycle as the USAF instead of the 1:45 which was their norm.
Add to this the general incompatibility of the flying wing with the Sea Control mission (the A-6 could actually carry more Harpoons or a mix of AGM-84/88/ADM-141) and the availability of several cruise system options which could do EITHER the high value land attack or anti shipping mission better, with less direct delivery exposure to the parent aircraft, and you have a serious roles and missions difficulty inherent to justifying a small force on a building navy hull program already looking to be strapped for funds in the 90's.
All of this is something that the USN KNEW going in and tried to coverup by not doing what was called a 'MENS' or Mission Element Needs Statement that tied their desire for a new toy to a specific mission profile and overall theater scenario (something that itself became harder and harder during the late 80's as Russia was self destructing) based on dated mission studies from the depths of the Cold War.
There was also more than a little politicking involved as the Marines liked their Intruders but didn't want to play RAG to the big decks (as they do now with single seat hornets they are spending HUGE amounts to keep flyable). And the USAF had long since run their own studies and come to the conclusion that the USN was deliberately stringing the contractors along for takeoff weight, field length and absolute performance issues. It should furhter be noted that while the blue suit community is definitely into longrange interdiction, they are generally a 1.5 sortie per day force with twice the available aircraft on long runways. And so can generally bring along enough tankers to do the job regardless of what aircraft is dropping iron on primaries vs. those shooting missiles in the support missions. Most importantly, the USN had done the USAF a dirty deed with their refusal to play ball on the F-111B (which was a perfectly fine airframe, vastly superior to the F-14 _for the FADF intercept mission_). Their backing out cost the USAF dearly in terms of economies of scale and memories are long in the 5 Walled Asylum so the USN really stood no chance.
As first the USAF refused to share specifics of 'lessons learned' in the F-117 and B-2 development efforts re: composites and LO engineering. And then they waited until a critical funding threshold to back out with their 550-580 or so planned ATA purchases.
Mind you, the contractors were not innocent as there was a lot of corruption and spend-thrift finance in things like the new main assembly hall that looked like one giant club house for the executives at MACDAC. Even as they also did a couple of things ('buying in' to the technology base using company funds) to part-finance the technical issues without having a really firm understanding of the problems which they were engaged in resolving. When these snowballed out of control as the R&D phase became a 3-way tug of war over weight/materials engineering, flying qualities and LO specifics, they ended up playing Little Dutch Boy. When matched to an initially massively underbid fixed price contract, the result was that, when the other services left the building, the A-12 went from being around 50 million to between 176 and 183 million, seemingly overnight.
There is no doubt however that the roughly 2 billion dollars in cost overruns to field at least a prototype would have been a darn sight easier to handle than the roughly 85 billion that the F-35 JSF is now pegged at.
The big issue here being that SecDef Cheney WAS BRIEFED as to there being some major cost issues before he went to testify before Congress the second time and had this come out, both he and the USN would have been battered and fried for engaging in what are called 'Anti Deficiency Act' illegal actions which effectively require Congress to pay for something whose full extent they did not realize going in. That NavAir effectively moved the bar everytime GDMC thought they were getting close to a solution while knowing that the initial gross weight estimates (by which airframe costs are factored) were off by half being the direct cause of the disaster (Northrop actually refused to bid on the effort as outlined unless the USN was willing to specifically cover 80% of a 'best effort' development).
Basically, in Federal Service, and particularly in the Procurement arena, you are expected to have a much higher level of 'Fiduciary Responsiblity' awareness of expenditures inherent to being in the public trust on a check signing basis. Which means IF you either encourage a bid which you know cannot be met. Or allow a contract to be written in full-faith which is unenforceable (as an act of fraud in the inducement phase) because it cannot be fulfilled by a manufacturer 'doing his level best', you are subject to felony jail sentences of between 2 and 5 years for EACH offense.
And there were about 10 such involved with the ATA program, all centered within the inner ring of the Pentagon (no study, no development chart assigning specific program responsibilities, no independent audit of costs... The list is a panoply of against-the-rules acquisition practices.).
In the end, the USN deliberately lied about expectations (using in-house data) as a function of expecting to hold GDMC over a barrel to guarantee their completion of the R&D phase essentially 'for free' on a cheap-as-cheap-does non-USAF megabudgetary basis. The unwritten understanding being that a followon triservice buy would make up for it in production numbers allowing for suitable padding of the books. When two of those three services picked up their dollies and went home, the difference between a 1.37 billion dollar fee expenditure (which funds the Navy wanted returned because it was known that the Contractors _never could_ meet weight specs) and a 2 billion dollar expected overage became unsurvivable either way to companies already mortgaged to the hild. And so they chose to fight the cancellation in court using a 'for convenience of the government' argument which would let them keep the initial funding and sue for work done but unpaid.
A fight which they won, even though it basically assured them of being exiled from the military development field (GDFW is now a division of Lockheed Martin, McDonnell Douglas is now Boeing owned).
CONCLUSION:
Of all of this, the interesting part is that there was solid progress and a real effort by the Admiral Morris (duhhh, I think it was) in charge of NavAir to get all wheels back on the road. If it hadn't been for CYA politics (which sent the ATA program officer and one DOD budget analyst to jail) inside the Administration; it is almost certain that the 'A-12' would have indeed flown, not much more than a year or two later than initial expected. Since this actually /agreed/ with then (1983 or so) Navy secretary John Lehman's A-6F-then-Stealth expectation of technology maturation in time for a 1995-97 production decision, there can be no doubt that the ATA was viable, at least from the standpoint of generating flyable hardware. That GD and MACDAC could solve for so many dogpiling issues (how to cast a huge wingspar in composite material without cracks and voids) in the utter absence of proper program direction or promised TDPs (technical data packages) from Northrop and Lockheed shows that they were also willing to 'fix the problem, not the blame'.
Whether it would have been enough is anybody's guess because, again, the mission was wrongly perceived from the start. Yet the X-47 N-UCAS is actually closer to the A-12s physical perfomance spec than either the F/A-18E/F (which the ATA followon AX became) or the Joint Strike Fighter. And gets around naval compatibility through a combination of better munitions technology (IAMs and specifically the GBU-39/SMER which vastly decreases weight per shot) and zeroed man-rating (CofG and flight control responsiveness). As such unmanned systems are proving that you CAN do things around the boat with nominally deltoid lifting bodies that are impossible in crewed platforms. Even as they further give you options for loiter at radius $$:FH ratios which a piloted airframe cannot match without fatigueing the aircrew and airframe beyond endurance.

KPl.