The McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II, perhaps best known colloquially as the “Flying Dorito,” due to its unmistakable delta shape, offers a high-visibility lesson in the difficulty headlining the development of high technology for military applications. The A-12 Avenger II was one of the fruits of the Advanced Tactical Aircraft program initiated by the United States Navy in the 1980s and, at the time of this cancellation, was supposed to enter the fleet as an ultra-modern, carrier-based stealth bomber for use on carriers to replace the aging Grumman A-6 Intruder. With a staggering investment of over $5 billion, this project was eventually canceled in 1991; hence, only a full-scale cabin mockup is the reminder of the existence of its ambitious yet never-to-be-realized promise.
The A-12 Avenger II was designed to be an all-weather, two-seat stealth bomber with enriched stealth characteristics beyond those of the F-117A. It was made to take a load of 5,150 pounds of internal ordnance to a maximum speed of 580 mph—with a strike radius of almost 500 miles. The aircraft design was a flying wing; it was supposed to have the least tail armament and also very little fuselage, all of which were supposed to reduce the aircraft’s drag and enhance its stealth capability. Initial U.S. Navy procurement had been planned for about 620 examples, with the Marine Corps and Air Force considering follow-on buys, which might have made it among the U.S. military’s most numerous aircraft.
On the other hand, there emerged enormous technical problems along with a cost overrun for the A-12 project. Certain constant issues, such as the one associated with excessive weight, technical problems with the composite materials, and the like, remained highly problematic and went completely out of the control of the designers of the aircraft. Despite these shortcomings, the Pentagon continued to encourage the A-12 project. The then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney canceled the A-12 program on January 7, 1991, when the A-12 was extremely off schedule and dramatically over budget.
Eastwood, Brent, in The National Interest, observed that “The Department of Defense had already sunk $5 billion into the program, and estimates for unit cost were ballooning at $96 million an aircraft.” According to Porter, Cheney believed that the rapidly escalating costs of the A-12 would eventually make it an “expensive albatross on the Treasury.”. According to the AP report of 1989, the escalation of other Cold War priorities and the preference given to other military aspirations reminded Cheney to call upon Congress to discontinue funding the further development of A-12, citing that cruise missiles and those other bombers at the Navy’s disposal can serve its goals.
The cancellation of the A-12 program resulted in the largest contract termination in DoD history up to that time. The litigation culminated in court rulings ordering contractors McDonnell Douglas Corporation and General Dynamics Corporation to return $2 billion spent on the venture. The legal ordeal extended for more than 10 years before the case was finally, and successfully, argued before the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the DoD indeed needed to return the money to the contractors.
And today, at the entrance to the Fort Worth Aviation Museum, that same singular mockup of the A-12 Avenger II is a monument to the intensely ambitious hopes and final project collapse. The A-12 story is one of those that puts in perspective the inherent risks and challenges involved in turning out next-generation military technology and holds a meaningful lesson for future defense procurement efforts.