Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnews!cbnews!military From: davisp@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Palmer Davis) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: F-117A Performance? Keywords: F-19, green fuzzy bananas Message-ID: <1991Feb7.020836.4547@cbnews.att.com> Date: 7 Feb 91 02:08:36 GMT References: <1991Feb6.033211.22782@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: TIDNU System Research Group Lines: 41 Approved: military@att.att.com From: davisp@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Palmer Davis) In article <1991Feb6.033211.22782@cbnews.att.com> brndlfly@athena.mit.edu (Matthew T Velazquez) writes: >In article <1991Feb4.065635.21784@cbnews.att.com> tkogoma@triton.cirt.unm.edu writes: > >>What *is* the 'official' name for the F-117? > >Clancy called it the Frisbee. I don't know the source for "Ghostrider". Clancy didn't call it anything. He called the "F-19A" the "Ghostrider" (nicknamed the "Frisbee" by its pilots); _Red_Storm_Rising_ was written back before anybody knew anything about the F-117, and conventional wisdom held that the stealth fighter would be called the "F-19". It is interesting to note that although the "F-19" was a figment of everyone's imagination, most sources agreed more or less on what it looked like. There's a picture of one on the box cover of Microprose's _F-19_Stealth_Fighter_ game; GDW's _Air_Superiority_ gives a data card with a silhouette. I also remember seeing artist's renderings of the plane in several magazines; I don't remember the exact references offhand. The plane is shaped something like a long, thin guitar pick with two tails that slope in. It was supposed to evade radar by absorbing or slightly deflecting incoming radar signals with very little return as opposed to the F-117 which apparently evades radar by bouncing the return off at odd angles rather than back to the receiver. (The occasional wave that does make it back is supposed to look like random noise to the operator.) I suppose it's possible that a plane resembling the one that everyone expected may have been built as a prototype at some point but abandoned in favor of the F-117 either due to superior flight characteristics or better radar evasion (or both). We'll probably never know. According to Clancy, the F-19A was supposed to be a pig to fly; according to GDW, it's just about as maneuverable as an F-18. (The question is academic since the plane doesn't exist.) -- PTD -- -- Palmer T. Davis | davisp@scl.cwru.edu -OR- ptd2@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University | {att,sun,decvax,uunet}!cwjcc!skybridge!davisp --------------------------------+---------------------+------------------------ Wake up and smell the cat food in your bank account. | Life is short.