Could the A-12 Avenger perform?

What computer Simulation tells about the flying Dorito

The glass cockpit of the A-12 Avenger II

Though it never flew, The McDonnel Douglas A-12 Avenger II, which was to replace the Grumman A-6 Intruder, lives on in the computer flight sim world. This flight model is from Strike Fighters series 1 and closely follows the known parameters of the actual aircraft. So could the flying Dorito chip actually do what was promised before its' 1991 cancelation? How does it compare to the A-6F Intruder II?

The A-12 looks a lot like the Jack Northrop YB-48 bomber.

The first thing you notice about the A-12 Avenger is how closely it looks like the YB-48 jet bomber created by Jack Northrop in the early 1950's. The A-12 actually took design ideals from both Northrop aircraft and Nazi aircraft like the Horton flying wing jet fighter. The smooth curvatures in the design were for low presentation to radar, to reduce the cross sectional return that would be sent back to a search radar after the signal bounced around the Avenger's surface. The plus for the Avenger is it would have had a lower radar cross section to the A-6.

    Like the F-117 stealth fighter, the A-12 would need a computer system to maintain flight because the aircraft had no traditional vertical stabilizers, like the twin tails on the F-14. The computer flight model is unstable at low speeds and it's speed brakes make bringing the aircraft down to proper landing speed difficult if the aircraft is topping 300 knots. These problems were part of the negatives which eventually killed the project. The other factor was weight, the A-12 had to be under a specified weight for carrier service in order to last through thousands of catapult shots and landing cycles. Up to project cancelation, the aircrafts' useful carrier life was no better than the F/A-18-A fighter of that time. Five years maximum. The A-6 Intruders in service during the Gulf War had an average use span of 20 to 30 years per aircraft. Here is the clear difference between "plastic jets" like the F-18 and real combat jets like the A-6.

The A-12 had vector thrust.

The A-12 Avenger was planned to have vector thrust where the tail exhaust was designed to tilt left/right and up/down to assist the aircraft in turning and climbing. But the actual planned engines for the Avenger presented a serious problem. Weighted down by bombs and missiles, the Avenger would have been seriously under-powered in a classic attack move called "the pop" which the A-6 Intruder could out-perform it's supposed successor. In flying both models in the computer simulation. The A-6F Intruder could go from 250 feet to 15,000 feet at full speed with a 40 degree climb in 57 seconds. The A-12 however reaches only 10,000 feet before it stalls out, a dangerous position where an attack aircraft must be out of the range of medium caliber guns when it goes into a diving attack.

The A-12's swing down racks are a liability.

The A-12 ordinance delivery system included a touchy swing down launching system that more often than not in the simulations, jams or fails to operate. The A-6F how ever had a near 100 percent expectation of operation and reliability. All modern stealth aircraft, like the F-35 Lightning, have to have internal weapons bays in order to have good stealth capabilities. Deployable rack systems are notoriously complex and very vulnerable to potential damage in a combat environment.

 
In the end, the A-12 for all the plus of stealth is simply not designed for the kind of environment the A-6 was built for but that doesn't matter in 2016 where manned combat aircraft are slowly being phased out of existence by the Unmanned Airborne Combat Vehicle (UCAV) the legacy of the A-12 lives on in the Navy's newest combat jet; the X-47B Pegasus. Combat jets are severely limited by the human crew and removing them allows for aircraft designs which can do things manned aircraft can not do. So the A-12 didn't exactly die...it just didn't need a human crew.