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From: jfb@ihlpm.att.com (Joseph F Baugher)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: F-19 vs. F-117
Keywords: Stealth, designations, confusion, gap
Message-ID: <1990Jul24.025019.21316@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 24 Jul 90 02:50:19 GMT
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From: jfb@ihlpm.att.com (Joseph F Baugher)

The "F-19" is an intriguing problem.  As you are undoubtedly aware, there
is a "gap" in the USAF fighter designation scheme at number 19.  F-18 is the
McDonnell-Douglas "Hornet", F-20 is the Northrop "Tigershark", whereas F-19 is
unspecified.  For a long time, it was generally thought (a la Tom Clancy) that
F-19 was the designation for the highly-classified stealth fighter.  Now
that we know that the designation of the Stealth is F-117A, this naturally
raises the question: just WHAT is F-19?  Aviation Leak had a brief report that
came out just after the F-117A went public, in which some Air Force spokesman
said that F-19 had never been assigned to any aircraft because "it might have
gotten confused with the MiG-19".  If anyone out there actually believes
this explanation, I've got a bridge for sale :-)

Anyone out there have any guesses as to what F-19 is?



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