Derek Lyons wrote:

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.


Wanna see something strange? I stumbled on this when I was looking for
photos of the Vigilante...you take the bomb and fuel tanks out of the
tubular bomb bay, and stick a third engine in there instead...then you
hang some Super Falcon/Phoenix missiles on it and.... behold! The
Vigilante interceptor!: http://www.vectorsite.net/ava56.jpg
The aerodynamics of those added intakes look kinda iffy at high angles
of attack.
No reply from the website about the crash remains yet.

Pat