TOliver wrote:


"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.

Speaking of stablemates, how could you fail to mention the most
elegantly graceful and aesthetically pleasing Grumman product ever
built, the W2F Fudd?

The Tracker, the Trader and the Tracer, three different versions of two
T-28's welded to a dumpster.

But I did see a video of a beautiful Stoof working on a California
brushfire last week.

Rick