Consistent CAP over a fleet from a land base

The original A2F-1 / A-6A design is not what I was referring to earlier.

The single-cockpit "A-6" was a design based upon the already (at that time) in-existence A-6 airframe. The Iron Works folks basically tried to save time by building upon something already flying about the place.

--
Mike Kanze

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"If you're in the Army, it doesn't matter...you have no soul, being a brainwashed killer."

(I was told this by a very earnest young woman in Berkeley the other day. The look on her face when I asked why she was risking life and limb by angering a soulless killer was worth the lecture.)

-- Douglas Berry

"TOliver" wrote in message ...

"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.

Mike Kanze wrote:
The original A2F-1 / A-6A design is not what I was referring to earlier.

The single-cockpit "A-6" was a design based upon the already (at that
time) in-existence A-6 airframe. The Iron Works folks basically tried to
save time by building upon something already flying about the place.

That light-attack competition actually required that the competitors be
based on existing designs, so they got a Super A-4, a Single-Seat A-6,
and a Scrunched F-8 (aka the A-7). Funny how the A-7 won, as it was
probably the one with the least actual relationship with its notional
ancestor. I don't know if there are any structural elements in common
between the A-7 and the F-8.

Sound familiar? The Navy does this a lot.

--
Tom Schoene lid
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