In part because of a wing-to-wing aluminum alloy beam, the bulky jet could bear that weight and its rugged fuselage while still being able to take considerable enemy fire. And with the attack-navigation system incorporated by Mr. Mead and his team, ground troops could be covered through cloudy skies and even at night. The midwing jet detected and attacked enemy vehicles traveling at night along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, North Vietnam’s supply line to the south.

Over the A-6’s 32-year history, Grumman built more than 700 of the planes. They flew combat sorties over Grenada and Lebanon in 1983 and during the first Persian Gulf war — “a remarkably long and successful service life,” Mr. Stoff said.

“When we won the contract,” Mr. Mead told Plane News in 1980, “we thought that it would be successful if we could sell 100 Intruders.”

The A-6 was just one of Mr. Mead’s accomplishments. He was a member of the Grumman team that designed the Apollo lunar module that carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969. He was also one of the chief designers of the F-14 Tomcat, the fighter featured in the hit movie “Top Gun.” Lawrence Myers Mead Jr. was born in Plainfield, N.J., on May 11, 1918, to Lawrence and Eleanor Machado Mead, but spent much of his childhood in China, where his parents were missionaries. After returning to the United States, Mr. Mead graduated from Princeton in 1940 with a degree in engineering. He earned a master’s degree there in 1941. Soon after, he was hired by Grumman, which at the height of World War II had more than 25,000 workers at its complex in Bethpage, on Long Island. Mr. Mead worked on the design teams for Navy fighters like the Hellcat and the Bearcat.