At the end of World War II, the Navy wanted to develop a nuclear strike capability. Missile submarines were far off, so the Navy decided to procure a carrier-based aircraft capable of carrying a 10,000-pound nuclear bomb over a radius of 1,000 nm. This big new machine would operate from carriers in the new USS United States class and would weight about 100,000 pounds. Betting that the United States would never be built, Ed Heinemann at Douglas proposed an aircraft of “only” 70,000 pounds, which would still be huge by existing carrier aircraft standards. The design became the three-person swept-wing, twin-engine A3D Skywarrior. In 1962, under the new Department of Defense classification scheme, the Skywarrior was redesignated the A-3. Given its size, it was quickly nicknamed “the Whale.” To this day, the A3D has the record for the heaviest aircraft to be launched from a carrier, although the F-14, which appeared many years later, was not too much smaller. -
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/people/88123769@N02">Bernard Spragg. NZ</a> from Christchurch, New Zealand
2013-11-09 12:23
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/volvob12b/11363963366/">Douglas A3DNTA-3B Skywarrior (Bomber)</a>