20-Year Legal Battle Over Canceled A-12 Ends
The A-12 Avenger II was an overly ambitious attempt to provide the U.S. Navy with a very stealthy carrier-based warplane.
The A-12 Avenger II was an overly ambitious attempt to provide the U.S. Navy with a very stealthy carrier-based warplane.

A legal dispute over the U.S. Navy’s termination of the A-12 Avenger II carrier-based attack aircraft in 1991 for default has finally been settled after five trials and two appeals over two decades. Citing cost and schedule overruns, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney cancelled the pioneering stealth warplane before it had flown. General Dynamics (GD) and McDonnell Douglas (MD) were developing the airplane. The settlement was reached between the U,S. government, Boeing (which subsequently acquired MD) and GD (which subsequently sold its warplane business to Lockheed Martin but retained liability for the A-12).

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