US NAVY ATA (Advanced Tactical Aircraft) program: A-12 Avenger II & its rivals

[joewee]

As someone involved in the Northrop ATA, and the following A12 evaluation by Northrop, there is so much misinformation in this, it's not even worth a detailed reply.

Can't help adding my 2 cents ... KJ has been drinking too much of his own bath water.

I never had a dog in the ATA fight, but I was on the small Bethpage team working our pre-ATA clean sheet design. That was until SECNAV John Lehman visited us in July 1984 and flat-out told Grumman Pres. George Skurla and a few VPs to "fly out west and talk to Northrop".

In addition to experiences shared by Cancerman and Hydroman, I'll add another story:
Lockheed Skunk Works sent a team of about 50 engineers to Fort Worth in the 1988-1989 timeframe (plus or minus), based on a direct request from General Dynamics' CEO to Larry Kitchen, CEO of Lockheed Corp. [It's possible I was told that Alan Brown was the leader of the Lockheed contingent in Fort Worth; I'm not at all certain.]

The Lockheed team was parachuted in to 'help out' with observables stuff. I've spoken to 2 of those 50 folks. If memory serves, they were in FW for several weeks, not several months. What I remember best is this story: CEO Kitchen called the Lockheed team leader (Brown?) and told him to pack up and come home. The small group of Lockheed execs with BRR access had concluded that GD was unlikely to award the type and size of subcontract that was initially promised in return for Lockheed's assistance.

Edit: fiddled with date.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I never had a dog in the ATA fight, but I was on the small Bethpage team working our pre-ATA clean sheet design

Intended to be LO/VLO?

 

[joewee]

Intended to be LO/VLO?

Yes, as best as we understood it.
We were taught shaping basics by the Global Analytics team (of pirates). We were given very sporty requirements by a Navy office (who seemed to know less than we did, IMO).
Looking back 40 years later, our two preferred external arrangements were actually decent compromises between LO/VLO and flight performance, including carrier suitability.
One of those two conceptual designs (known as Boxbat; the boss's favorite -- far from mine) was brought to Northrop in Sept/Oct 1984 I was told. It was Grumman's input to the start of the ATA conceptual design phase. A comparative evaluation was made with Northrop's mini-B-2 and a Vought design layout. We all know which configuration won that competition.

 

[joewee]

Looking back 40 years later, our two preferred external arrangements were actually decent compromises between LO/VLO and flight performance, including carrier suitability.

Here's a simple summary of Grumman's pre-ATA clean-sheet design work, based on my memory.

We started with 5 basic configurations -- 3 fixed wing and 2 variable sweep. In lieu of providing sketches, these are the vehicle takeoff gross weights of our AAA (advanced attack aircraft) concepts of 1983-1984. All were sized to a subsonic mission profile and payload very similar to later ATA/A-12 requirements:

Star-C.........................TOGW=base​

Star-T................................+2%​

Boxbat............................+10%​

DoubleDelta-VS.........+20%​

Delta-VS........................+25%​

No surprise that the concepts' LO/VLO potential was in the opposite order of the lightest (and cheapest). My preference was Star w/Tails because Star w/Canards provided less control robustness in a carrier approach condition. The boss (P.B.) brought Boxbat to Los Angeles in Sep/Oct 1984...

The Delta-VS configuration resembled the L-B-GD A-X design of 1991-1992, shown below. Of course ours was much more cartoonish: we hardly knew the technological solutions for so many components and design details.


from https://aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/fighter/jsf/pics04.shtml

The Boxbat configuration bore some resemblance to the Republic F-105 planform, shown next. Among the differences were a chisel nose, lambda wing, and a wider fuselage housing a large weapons bay and twin engines.

 

[Hydroman]

Can't help adding my 2 cents ... KJ has been drinking too much of his own bath water.

I never had a dog in the ATA fight, but I was on the small Bethpage team working our pre-ATA clean sheet design. That was until SECNAV John Lehman visited us in July 1984 and flat-out told Grumman Pres. George Skurla and a few VPs to "fly out west and talk to Northrop".

In addition to experiences shared by Cancerman and Hydroman, I'll add another story:
Lockheed Skunk Works sent a team of about 50 engineers to Fort Worth in the 1988-1989 timeframe (plus or minus), based on a direct request from General Dynamics' CEO to Larry Kitchen, CEO of Lockheed Corp. [It's possible I was told that Alan Brown was the leader of the Lockheed contingent in Fort Worth; I'm not at all certain.]

The Lockheed team was parachuted in to 'help out' with observables stuff. I've spoken to 2 of those 50 folks. If memory serves, they were in FW for several weeks, not several months. What I remember best is this story: CEO Kitchen called the Lockheed team leader (Brown?) and told him to pack up and come home. The small group of Lockheed execs with BRR access had concluded that GD was unlikely to award the type and size of subcontract that was initially promised in return for Lockheed's assistance.

Edit: fiddled with date.

To add also joewee, Lockheed was also "trying" assist GD with fixing the A-12 tail pipe since it did not work. Lockheed stated the tail pipe had to withstand higher temps than what the GD analysis concluded. Ben Rich said (and quoted from an interview) you dumb "s**ts, the highest exhaust temps are not worst-case in-flight temps but after you shut the engines down, no cooling air around and passing through the submerged exhaust system.

Again, GD thought they knew better than one of the industry experts and Ben Rich was originally a thermodynamics guy. Our Northrop ATA if selected, would have had some issues and probably minor but the USN would have had an excellent aircraft (providing it was cost-plus due to high risk), every aircraft program is not perfect especially if you are implementing new tech.

Additionally, to GD/McAir credit, the USN was constantly jacking with the specification. Eventually there were so many "natural access" panels for maintenance that the A-12 would have had to have been jacked and jigged to a 1g configuration just to remove panels for routine maintenance since these panels would now become load-bearing, imagine the what the techs would say, I would be pissed if I had to jack and jig an aircraft just for basic maintenance.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Eventually there were so many "natural access" panels for maintenance that the A-12 would have had to have been jacked and jigged to a 1g configuration just to remove panels for routine maintenance since these panels would now become load-bearing, imagine the what the techs would say, I would be pissed if I had to jack and jig an aircraft just for basic maintenance.

Dafuq?

Man, I'd be throwing wrenches and probably making a list of engineers to "talk" to.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

I'm intrigued by this "Boxbat". Intrigued enough to have tried to visualize it. This is just a rough sketch on the back of an envelope. I know it sucks. But it's the best I could do with the info at hand and only 2 sips of coffee!

 

[flateric]

MWS sensors fairings on large scale model not seen on full-scale mockup.

 

[quellish]

I'm intrigued by this "Boxbat". Intrigued enough to have tried to visualize it. This is just a rough sketch on the back of an envelope. I know it sucks. But it's the best I could do with the info at hand and only 2 sips of coffee!

Maybe like this?

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/grumman-773-wind-tunnel-model.38314/

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Maybe like this?

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/grumman-773-wind-tunnel-model.38314/

That works for me!

 

[flateric]

Maybe like this?

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/grumman-773-wind-tunnel-model.38314/

@cfiav8tor

 

[joewee]

Maybe like this?

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/grumman-773-wind-tunnel-model.38314/

Yikes, what an odd design -- certainly not ATA related. Additionally, it's quite unlikely to have emerged from a SAP/SAR compartment. It's definitely from some activity well after I left Bethpage, for greener pastures in Burbank (browner pastures?). So 1993-1994 would be my guess ... right before Oliver Boileau did his version of DOGE with the assets Kent Kresa had just purchased.

More speculation - Although Hughes was the contractor for Tacit Blue's phased array radar, Grumman was responsible for the AN/APY-7 in the E-8 Joint STARS. As Paul mentioned, the 773 would seem to date from just before the merger with Northrop, so perhaps this was a last ditch effort to develop and pitch a "survivable", loitering battlefield surveillance and targeting platform using a version of the radar that they developed?

Excellent xstatic3000! Emphasis on last ditch...
Grumman-Bethpage was out of ideas and out of $$$. The E-8C and the E-2C were the only franchises left, and both of those were already in, or transitioning to, Florida.
Edit: also possible Grumman was looking at an advanced AEW platform -- or even a new aircraft that combines air, ground and surface ISR&T.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Yikes, what an odd design -- certainly not ATA related. Additionally, it's quite unlikely to have emerged from a SAP/SAR compartment. It's definitely from some activity well after I left Bethpage, for greener pastures in Burbank (browner pastures?). So 1993-1994 would be my guess ... right before Oliver Boileau did his version of DOGE with the assets Kent Kresa had just purchased.

Yes, Model 775 was 1993 so 773 is likely from the same era.

 

[DWG]

A question I've been mulling at the back of my mind for the last few days, was A-12 fixable?

We know it was overweight and had significant stealth problems, some of which were built in by the initial operational concept of a low-level penetrator, others inherent in the Dorito layout, ultimately leading SecDef (Dick Cheney) to cancel it in January 1991.

But if we hadn't had the peace dividend and the Cold War had continued, giving the A-6 replacement additional importance, could it have been turned into an operable aircraft with fixed signature? Or would it have been cheaper to start over (A-X), or look at A/F-117N?

 

[Scott Kenny]

A question I've been mulling at the back of my mind for the last few days, was A-12 fixable?

We know it was overweight and had significant stealth problems, some of which were built in by the initial operational concept of a low-level penetrator, others inherent in the Dorito layout, ultimately leading SecDef (Dick Cheney) to cancel it in January 1991.

But if we hadn't had the peace dividend and the Cold War had continued, giving the A-6 replacement additional importance, could it have been turned into an operable aircraft with fixed signature? Or would it have been cheaper to start over (A-X), or look at A/F-117N?

I don't believe that the MDD A-12 was fixable.

The "fix" would have had to have been selecting the NG design to begin with.

 

[Archibald]

Reading that thread it is amazing how a huge clusterfrack that program had become. Did everybody was on a lead-paint-chips diet ?