Originally Posted by
Commando Cody
Now the way it was explained to me….
Here's a drawing of the Northrop-Grumman ATA proposal. Yes, it looks like a mini B-2, which shouldn't surprise anyone.
Now the way it happened, from the first hand account from a person who was there.
The Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a former A-6 B/N, wanted to award the contract for the ATA replacement to the A-6 directly to his friends at Grumman. He ran into two problems however.
First problem, by 1985, Grumman had not won a clean sheet design contract since the F-14 in 1966. So Grumman had neither the technology or the engineering manpower for a conventional aircraft, let alone an stealth aircraft. The solution, team Grumman with Northrop who was building the B-2. Grumman took no convincing, since this was their last chance at remaining a prime contractor.
Second problem, a DOD contract this huge for an all new aircraft had to be a competitive bid. But what viable prime contractor would waste their engineering resources competing for a contract where the winner was already chosen? Both MCAIR and GD were viable prime contractors, and both had experience with stealth technology from IRAD and CRAD work (but not to the same level as Lockheed and Northrop). But both MCAIR and GD were in direct competition against each other for the ATF (to become YF-22 and YF-23). Not to mention decades of bad feelings from prior competitions. So MCAIR and GD had zero desire to compete on a ATA contract. Let alone team with each other.
Only under extreme pressure from the DOD and promises of future contracts did MCAIR and GD team for the ATA competition. From day one all the MCAIR and GD engineers knew they had no chance in hell of winning, unless the other team really screwed up. Which is what happened.
Arrogance by Grumman and Northrop management lead to them telling the Navy their specifications were wrong. To reduce development cost and risk, Grumman and Northrop proposed a scaled down B-2, like shown in your figure. However this results in a aircraft wing span with inadequate clearance to the carrier superstructure and other aircraft when using the aft deck for launch and recovery. Navy was not happy being told they could not use the aft deck on their carriers.
MCAIR and GD also had issues with the ATA specification, but they respected the Navy position and made recommendations of alternatives, crew seating is an example. The original ATA specification required side by side seating like the A-6. But this added width, drag, and created engine inlet distortion. A tandem seating configuration was best. But the old A-6 B/N Lehman wanted side by side. Once MCAIR and GD were awarded the contract, they were advised to change to tandem seating.
So the team that was never supposed to win, won. Not because of fixed price contract issues, but because they had the best technical solution to the specification. Grumman, failing to win the ATA contract, ceased to be a viable prime, and soon acquired by Northrop.
Why the A-12 contract was canceled, is a completely different and longer story.
Now bringing this back to the thread topic. What do we think is going to happen to Boeing Vertol if the Defiant is not chosen? It has been almost 40 years since they won the V-22 contract with Bell. Performing upgrades to the Chinook and Apache is not like doing a clean sheet design.