Pat Flannery wrote:
They found out the hard way that the bomb itself wasn't very
jettisonable... IIRC, during a test one got caught in the aircraft's
slipstream and started following the plane around until it reduced its
speed enough for the bomb/fuel tank assembly to fall clear...it also had
a tendency to slide out the back of the aircraft during catapult launch:
http://www.air-navy.com/a3j-usn.htm like a turd from hell.
The aircraft promptly got changed into a recon machine.

The technical problems with the A5 certainly helped it along the path
to being a recon machine, but the surface Navy was already getting out
of the strategic nuke business anyhow. The Vigilante was only one of
many schemes floated about get the Navy into the strategic offensive,
but the sucess and simplicity of Polaris compared to the other (mostly
Rube Goldbergesque, many of dubious safety) systems resulted in them
being abandoned wholesale.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.