Big, beautiful and very fast, the Vigilante was a Mach 2 nuclear bomber designed in the 1950s, the era where all things seemed possible and brilliant minds flourished. Due to politics limiting the role of the Navy in strategic nuclear weapons delivery, the A3J (as it was originally designated) saw little service as the bomber it was designed to be. Politics wasn't the only reason the very advanced aircraft didn't work out in that role.
Imagine dropping bombs through a tunnel leading to an exit between two red hot jet exhausts. Sounds pretty impractical, doesn't it? Yeah, that's what the otherwise brilliant designers came up with for the Vigilante. Needless to say, the mechanics of the problem had issues especially when fuel bladders were also in the "train" contained in the tunnel.
Not wanting to waste a good plane, the A-5 was converted into the RA-5 photoreconnaissance version. During the Vietnam War, they made many vital runs bringing back valuable pictures of targets and enemy locations. An interesting tidbit is that escorting F-4 Phantom fighters had a hard time keeping up with the Vigilante due to its cleaner loadout and aerodynamics. This is despite having the same General Electric J79 turbojet engines.
Such impressive speed and altitude performance led to a proposal to build an interceptor version which would have had a third J79 taking up space partially from the bomb tunnel and between the existing engines. That layout would have looked a lot like a Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica from the rear. Alas not even a demonstrator was built and the idea was stillborn.
Supposedly the initial twin tailed mockup influenced the creation of the MiG-25 Foxbat interceptor! One thing is certain, it did pioneer a familiar design pattern used in fighters afterward especially in intake designs.
None are still flying, but there are a few of these beauties preserved in museums.
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