Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: plains!umn-cs!LOCAL!thornley@uunet.UU.NET (David H. Thornley) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: USAF F- Planes Message-ID: <1990Jul31.223712.6667@cbnews.att.com> Date: 31 Jul 90 22:37:12 GMT References: <1990Jul31.023112.20171@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis - CSCI Dept. Lines: 48 Approved: military@att.att.com From: plains!umn-cs!LOCAL!thornley@uunet.UU.NET (David H. Thornley) In article <1990Jul31.023112.20171@cbnews.att.com> lang@hpfcso.fc.hp.com (John J. Lang) writes: > > >From: John J. Lang >> Here is what i've been able to assemble to try and complete the USAF F- series >> listing. > >> Grumman F-6F Hellcat >> Vought F-8F Bearcat >> Grumman F-9F Panther >> Grumman F-14D Tomcat >> MD F-18 Hornet > >I don't know if this concerns you, but the Hellcat, Bearcat, etc. are >Navy Planes. If you want to list all US planes (Air Force or otherwise) >you should also include the F-4U Wildcat. The F-14 and F-18 designations above are correct. The other designations are misstated from the original, and do not in fact belong in the F- series. The old Navy format was, basically, (type)(number)(manufacturer) - (number), where the first number is the general model number and the second is the modification number. The fighter designation was F, allowing confusion with later times. Therefore, the F6F (*no* hyphen there), F8F, and F9F were, respectively, the sixth, eighth, and ninth basic fighter designs that Grumman (second F) supplied to the Navy. If the number between the letters was 1 it was omitted; therefore, the FF was the first fighter design Grumman did for the navy. The Wildcat was in fact the F4F, and the F4U was the Corsair. One quirk with this system was that the same plane might have more than one designation. For example, the Avenger torpedo bomber by Grumman was the TBF, except when it was made by some other company (I can't remember the name - General Motors????) when it was the TBM. The Wildcat was the F4F when made by Grumman, and when production went elsewhere (same place as the Avenger, I think) it became (I think, doing this from memory) the FM. In contrast, a Mustang was a P-51 regardless of whether North American made it or not. I don't think we lost anything in the change to the modern system. [mod.note: Correct. The TBM and FM were both produced by GM. - Bill ] David H. Thornley