Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: US Fighter Designations Message-ID: <1990Aug16.030654.15996@cbnews.att.com> Date: 16 Aug 90 03:06:54 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 31 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Mary Shafer About the F-106--Rockwell managed to get the last (in some sense--most recently operational, last built, something) Air National Guard F-106s, to use as chases for the B-1 production flight test. I saw one shooting touch-and-goes at Plant 42 a couple of months ago. I believe that these planes came from the North Dakota ANG, but am not certain. These planes probably still belong to the Air Force and are just bailed to Rockwell. The X-31 consortium (Rockwell, USN, and Germans) are using F-8Gs for their chase planes. Same procedure, only Navy. Let me explain production test flight. A company builds a military plane and it's flown by a company test pilot for at least one flight before the military accepts the plane and flies it away. The reason for the pre-acceptance flights is to test that the wings are indeed attached to the fuselage, the gear goes down as well as up, the control surfaces move in the required directions, and other airworthiness issues. The military wants any problems to happen to the company's airplane, not the military's. The same procedure is followed for civil aircraft. -- Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilot