“Cheney saw it as an expensive albatross that was getting more costly each year,” Brent Eastwood recalled of the A-12 Avenger II’s demise. But the story of the Navy’s “Flying Dorito” is far more than a cautionary tale of budget overruns—it is a case study in the intersection of stealth engineering, carrier aviation, and the unforgiving realities of defense acquisition.
By the early 1980s, the U.S. Navy was confronted with a situation of grave concern. It’s an A-6 Intruder, an aging veteran of Vietnam days, that was falling behind in competition with Soviet air defense sophistication. The Air Force F-117 Nighthawk had just demonstrated that stealth, and not speed or altitude, would be the characteristic of the next generation fighter-to-fighter combat. The Navy’s ATA program, started in 1983, intended to outleap the competition with a carrier-based platform for deep, high-accuracy attack into denied areas. The A-12 Avenger II would be it: a flying wing stealth penetrator that would evade radar and eliminate threats before they could return fire with internal bays for missiles and radar-absorbing composites.
The A-12’s tailless triangular planform was not for appearance alone. Every surface, every angle, and every material was selected with care in an effort to minimize radar cross-section (RCS). A-12 was intended to possess one-thirtieth the RCS of previous jets with 10 m² or more, taking advantage of what was achieved on the F-117 and B-2. Its internal carriage of weapons, lightweight composites, and obstruction-free view all contributed to electromagnetic invisibility. But stealth optimization entailed radical trade-offs: the plane’s broad wingspan—over 70 feet—had to be tempered by both radar reflectivity and accommodating two jets abreast on carrier catapults and being small enough to manipulate on deck.
Carrier fit imposed record loads on A-12 structure and systems. Catapult takeoffs and arrested landings place enormous loads on airframes and landing gear. A-12 designers had to compromise between heavy stealth and the intolerant performance limits of catapults and carrier arresting gear. Dynamic catapult launch simulation indicates that forces on rear struts can spike over 230 kN during restraining rod release, and any additional weight raises such stresses. The A-12’s light-walled composite structure was difficult to produce in volume and to tolerance, leading to widespread overweight conditions that compromised safety and performance.
The technical issue with the A-12 was matched by the programmatic sophistication of the aircraft. As a “black” secret program, it was subject to little outside oversight. Subsequent audits revealed a trend of excessively favorable Navy and contractor reporting, and Navy managers minimizing cost and schedule risk. “Overly protective Navy officials, who didn’t want to jeopardize the plane by raising objections,” was one of the Pentagon’s findings. Excessive secrecy had the effect that overruns and technical shortfalls were not revealed until too large to conceal, and progress payments were made on defective or incomplete work. The fixed-price contract agreement, designed to contain costs, rather, rather than allowing for the unsought surprises of frontier technology.
Weight creep was the program’s Achilles’ heel. Adding stealth features—shrouded bays, radar-absorbing coatings, sophisticated avionics—added pounds. Carrier requirements meant additional structural reinforcement. The final product: the A-12 tipped the scales at a minimum of 8,000 pounds over weight, and no method seemed to exist in development to meet performance or safety specs. As a study explained it, “the complexity of combining stealth features with carrier-based requirements” was staggering. This excess weight drained not only the aircraft’s range and payload, but its ability to fly safely off carriers—a fundamental requirement of naval aviation.
By 1991, the program had cost $1 billion more than anticipated, 18 months behind schedule, and still on the ground. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who had once been a proponent, finally decided, “Every time [Secretary Cheney] asked about additional costs, he was told that no one could be sure.” That was part of the issue. On January 7, he scrapped the A-12, the Pentagon’s biggest contract default. The implications were swift: resignations, lawsuits, and the pre-emptive demise of the Navy’s vision of a stealthy strike carrier aircraft. The F/A-18 Hornet, not as stealthy but proven and reliable, filled the gap.
Despite failure, the A-12’s effect on technology and process was profound. Its pioneering flying-wing configuration and stealth technology paved the way for subsequent platforms, specifically the Northrop Grumman X-47B Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle. The carrier takeoff and landing by the X-47B demonstrated that flying-wing stealth was possible—but not until several decades of technological progress in materials, avionics, and systems integration culminated in the operational unmanned carrier aviation. On the A-12 side of the programmatic balance sheet, the failure resulted in closer scrutiny, milestone creation, and greater sensitivity to the risk of mating experimental technologies in a fixed-price contract.
The A-12 Avenger II is a lesson in bold relief: the path to technological revolution in military aviation is riddled with risk, but failure can be the seed of ultimate success.