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From: adrian@cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: F-19 vs. F-117
Message-ID: <1990Jul24.024951.21186@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 24 Jul 90 02:49:51 GMT
References: <1990Jul18.040928.14461@cbnews.att.com>
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From: Adrian Hurt <adrian@cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk>

In article <1990Jul18.040928.14461@cbnews.att.com> geraldp@mentor.com (Gerald Page) writes:
>
>I've heard a lot about the F-117 being the first "stealth fighter", but 
>not much at all about the F-19.

Also, can someone explain to me the way the USAF numbers its aircraft?  I
can account for most of the numbers 1 to 20, thus:
 1: McDonnell FH-1 Phantom
 2: McDonnell F2H Banshee
 3: McDonnell F3H Demon
 4: Confusion :-)  North American FJ-4 Fury; Douglas F4D Skyray; McDonnell-
    Douglas F4H Phantom II.
 5: Northrop F5 Freedom Fighter
 6: ?
 7: Chance Vought F7U Cutlass
 8: Chance Vought F8U Crusader
 9: Grumman F9F Panther, Cougar
10: ?
11: ?
12: Lockheed F-12; never got past YF-12 stage; became SR-71 Blackbird
13: ?  Maybe the companies were superstitious; maybe someone felt no pilot
    would want to fly an F-13.
14: Grumman F-14 Tomcat
15: McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle
16: General Dynamics F-16 Falcon
17: Northrop F-17; competitor to F-16 which failed.  Later resurrected as:
18: McDonnell-Douglas F-18 Hornet
19: Lockheed F-19, the hypothetical Stealth Fighter.  The real one is F-117
    for some reason.  Or is there an F-19 which no-one has seen yet?
20: Northrop's private follow-up to the F-5, which no-one would buy.
21: ?
22: The hypothetical ATF.

The above is in no chronological order, and probably full of mistakes, as
some of you will hopefully tell me by email.  You can also fill in the
blanks, please.  And explain why, at the same time, there were also numbers
from 100 up, e.g. F-104 Starfighter.

 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

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