December 12,
2008: Seventeen years after it was
cancelled, the builders of the U.S. Navy A-12 carrier based light bomber are
still fighting government attempts to get back $1.4 billion in unused money
they received for the aborted project. This all began in 1987, when McDonnell
Douglas and General Dynamics won a $4.4 billion contract to develop and build
eight development models of the A-12. In 1991, with $5 billion spent (including
cost overruns), the Department of Defense cancelled the project. The
manufacturers sued, on the grounds that the A-12 project was no more screwed up
than any others and that the Secretary of Defense wanted to divert the money to
the war effort in Kuwait. The manufacturers are demanding the government pay
them $3.8 billion, because the government was unfair and compensation ought to
be made. What with appeals and all, the case continues, and there is no end in
sight.
