... before the development of the Polaris missile carrying submarines the only way the US Navy could stay in the atomic war game was through it's aircraft and aircraft carriers. Nuclear weapons of the early cold War were large and heavy and it took a large and heavy aircraft to lug them all that way to a valuable target. The Douglas built A-3D Skywarrior, affectionately dubbed 'The Whale' remains the largest aircraft ever operated from a carrier. It also had an internal bomb-bay which allowed it to carry even the later model H-Bombs in comfort and style.
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The designation A-3D also affectionately stood for "All three dead", because the Navy concluded that ejection seats would have made the whale too heavy for carrier use.
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