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No, it was never named the F-19, that's just what the press assumed it would be... technically it's a bomber anyway so wouldn't have had the "F" prefix. The fact it's now F-117 really was just because that's what people called it, so they went with it.
Originally posted by blythe
perhaps the northrop design that competed against the F-117 was the mystery designation.
the airforce had two designs for a stealth plane, one from lockheed and one from northrop. the lockheed design won out at the radar range, thus the northrop design never made it to proto-type. the lockheed design was then made into the have blue aircraft, then eventually into the F-117.
Ben Rich put out a book that is describes this and other things at lockheed. if you are going to talk the talk, it is better to read the books that the people who built the things wrote, than fiction from a best selling author.
still, this doesn't truly answer the question, it just points out that there were two competing designs for the F-117.
Originally posted by GrOuNd_ZeRo
Good point Ghost!
XST is eXperimental Stealth Technology?
Originally posted by waynos
The jump from the YF-23 to the F-35 is easily explained, if a little hard to understand why.
It is simply the changing of the role identity letter of the Experimental X-35 to the fighter F-35. I don't know why the X-35 couldn't lead to the production fighter 'F-24' but there it is.
Also ghost, your list of US fighters has too many gaps as you have missed off several aircraft, McDonnell F-3, Douglas F-10 and Grumman F-11 being three of them. I don't know how many more you missed but those are the ones I noticed straight away.
Originally posted by Gazrok
Funny tidbit...a certain shade of pink is actually the best color for visual stealth, but nobody wants to fly a pink plane, hehe....(though at night, color really doesn't matter much)...
Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Originally posted by Gazrok
Funny tidbit...a certain shade of pink is actually the best color for visual stealth, but nobody wants to fly a pink plane, hehe....(though at night, color really doesn't matter much)...
Ive heard this before a pastel pink," but real men don't fly pink jets"
The Pink Baron That just sounds wrong
Originally posted by 4for4
I dunno, I believe if it did anything to help, the pilots (and the air forces) would swallow their pride and just do it. I'd rather fly a pink plane than be dead or captured!