"Mike Kanze" wrote in message . ..
Somewhat off-topic, but there was proposed at one time a single-seat variant of the A-6. IIRC, this one lost out early on to the A-7. There is a concept illustration of it somewhere on the web, but I no longer have the URL.

If you thought the A-6 looked slightly weird, this critter looked doubly so.

Before it received the designation "A6", the original bird emerged from Grumman's drawing boards with another name, A2F, IIRC, under the old designation pattern. Along with a different designator the proposal (and maybe the prototype) arrived with what were intended to be vectored thrust nozzles for the exhausts of its twin engines.

The company already had a history with twins for the Navy, the XF5F-1 (actually flown in cartoon combat by a famous comic squadron, notable for a nose which didn't quite extend to the wing's leading edge), the F7F, a sleek fuselage mated to two big radials, and the S2F "Stoof", stubbier than sleek, with its stablemate, the "commuter" airliner, the C1A.