Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: type_char on September 20, 2003, 02:32:27 AM
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(http://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/small/946541547-00.jpg)
"F-19"
The F-19 fighter designation has been one of the recurring mysteries of the postwar era and is the subject of numerous posts to this newsgroup. Scarcely a week goes by in which at least one netter doesn't ask why there an apparent "hole" in the USAF fighter sequence between F-18 and F-20. Was F-19 never assigned to any fighter aircraft as the Air Force claims, or is it a cover for some supersecret "black" project that is yet to be revealed?
All throughout the late 1980s, it was sort of an open secret that the Air Force and the Lockheed "Skunk Works" were working on a project to develop a "stealth fighter" that would be invisible to radar. It was assumed by almost everyone that this project bore the designation F-19, since that designation had apparently been skipped when F-20 was assigned to a Northrop design. In July of 1986, the Testor Corporation of Rockford, Illinois released a $9.95 plastic kit model of what they called the "F-19 Stealth Fighter". Tom Clancy referred to a "F-19 Ghostrider" in his 1986 novel Red Storm Rising as part of a plot involving a future European war.
After years of gossip and rumors, on November 10, 1988, the existence of the Lockheed "stealth fighter" was finally officially revealed by the Defense Department. It turned out to be an attack aircraft rather than a fighter, since it apparently has no air-to-air capability. At the same time, it was also revealed that its designation was F-117. It seems that the F-117 designation has nothing to do with the old fighter sequence which ended at F-111, in spite of rumors that the Soviet fighters under test at Groom Lake conceal their real identity by using call-signs such as F-112, F-113, and so on. During its development and test phase, the Lockheed "stealth fighter" was known strictly under its project name of Senior Trend, and never carried any designation at all, certainly not a designation of F-19. Although the real origin of the F-117 designation is still not known with certainty, it seems to have been derived from the strict security restrictions that were in place at Groom Lake during the flight testing --- pilots flying the Senior Trend test aircraft were not allowed to tell anyone what type of aircraft they were flying, and so whenever asked to fill out routine forms that requested identification of the aircraft type they flew they would fill in the meaningless number 117. When the first manual for the Senior Trend aircraft appeared, it had F-117 printed on its cover. Since it would cost too much to have the manual reprinted, the designation later became official.
So it seems that the Lockheed Senior Trend was never known as F-19. So what then WAS F-19? When asked about this, an Air Force spokesman claimed that the F-19 designation had never been assigned to any aircraft because of a fear that it might be confused with the Soviet MiG-19. This doesn't seem plausible, because the designations F-17, F-21, and F-23 had not been skipped. Another theory claims that the designation F-19 had been skipped at the insistence of the Northrop Aircraft Corporation so that they could obtain the F-20 designation for their turbofan-powered derivative of the F-5 Tiger II fighter, which had initially been known as the F-5G. Presumably this would make for better advertising copy--"The Northrop F-20: First of a new generation of fighters", for example. A similar sort of thing happened during World War 2 when the designation P-74 (and perhaps P-73 as well) had been deliberately skipped at the request of the Fisher Body Division of General Motors who wanted their new heavy escort fighter to carry the designation P-75 for advertising reasons. However, I have been unable to come up with a primary source for the Northrop story, so at this stage I can regard it as little more than an "urban legend".
This still leaves the question of the missing F-19 unresolved. Perhaps it really is the designation of some other super-secret project, so black that it will not be revealed for many years. Maybe the mysterious "Aurora" that is the subject of so much gossip, rumor, and speculation in this group is designated F-19. However, it is still not at all certain that any such aircraft as the "Aurora" actually exists. Maybe it will turn out that the Air Force had been telling the truth all along, that there never was an aircraft known as F-19. Perhaps all of this confusion was part of a deliberate plot by the Air Force to confuse Soviet intelligence--hoodwinking them into expending so much effort in trying to find out information about a plane that does not exist.
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Well the F17, F21, and F23 certainly arent combat aircraft. I'm gonna bet that F19 was skipped. After all, why risk confusing it with a Mig19?
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Who cares?
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The F-17 was renamed the F/A-18 (after some re-design). I can't say I've ever heard of the F-21 and the F-23 was not selected for service.
MiniD
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wasnt the F21 the leased Kfirs the marines used for awhile? Not real sure tho.
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Originally posted by Mini D
The F-17 was renamed the F/A-18 (after some re-design).
I always thought that "Cobra" was a much appropriate name for that airframe. And "Some" re-design :)
-Sik
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Originally posted by Mini D
The F-17 was renamed the F/A-18 (after some re-design). I can't say I've ever heard of the F-21 and the F-23 was not selected for service.
MiniD
Yep... The F/A-18 was previously desnigated YF-17. It lost the contract competition awarded to GD for the F-16.
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Originally posted by Dnil
wasnt the F21 the leased Kfirs the marines used for awhile? Not real sure tho.
I believe you're right.
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(http://www.kokopelli.org.uk/maritime/PKfirC-7.jpg)
The F-21 were indeed Kfirs bought by the US to use as aggressors. There were a bunch flown by the Marines and stationed at the USMC Air Station in Yuma, Arizona where I grew up.
Interesting story about them. When the IAF first brought them over and were checking the Marines out on them, they put metal shades up over them on the tarmac. As you can imagine, the skin of a plane, not to mention the rest of it, gets pretty hot in Yuma, Arizona on a 110deg day. Just by putting a shade up you can keep exposed metal from becoming untouchable (something I'm well aware of after growing up on a farm and working on the machinery). I bet the IAF guys wondered why the Marines had never thought of that.
:)
Also, the father of a friend of mine was a Lt. Col. and flew F-18's at the time. He took my dad and I on a tour of the flightline once and took us through the HQ of the aggressor squadron. The walls were covered in Hammer and Sickles, Soviet patriotic slogans and pictures of Stalin and Lenin. The aggressor pilots all wore gold helmets with big red stars on the side.
:)
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Plus it wasn't a bad early boxed sim with scripted missions. Pretty damn hairly trying to ingress under the radar on the Kola Peninsula as well.
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Originally posted by Reschke
Plus it wasn't a bad early boxed sim with scripted missions. Pretty damn hairly trying to ingress under the radar on the Kola Peninsula as well.
Yeah... I used to love playing Microprose F-19... wow... that was about fifteen years ago...
You can still find it... http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2229
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"Who cares?"
Bodhi, i bet type_char cares since he asked and all :p
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Type Char, if you wish to stop to be a dumb bellybutton stereotype follower, change your sig to "Vive les Freedom fries".
About the F19 project,
I remember when Italiery proposed a scale model of the F19, and had some explanation to do to the Pentagon in the 80s:D The F19 model was stationed on my monitor for a long time, especially when I was flying Microprose F19 ... and I swear, I WAS a real stealth fighter pilot at the time. Wohoo, I was waiting for USAF to give me a call saying :"you are da ****znit, please come fly for us".
Hehehe, I wished I could be a teen again ... wait (homework ... pimples ... no money ... no car ... free sex ...) nah, I'm better right now. Actually my early 20s were the best, I had the best of both world.:cool:
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Originally posted by davidpt40
Well the F17, F21, and F23 certainly arent combat aircraft. I'm gonna bet that F19 was skipped. After all, why risk confusing it with a Mig19?
Yup, everytime I see an F-15, I have to remind myself it's not a Mig 15 ;)
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Well Sakai, everytime I fly a P47, I have to remind myself that it's not a C47:rofl God knows I try...
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Had the F-19 game, got the F-117 "Patch" that turned it into a 117 and then bought the F-117 game. Back in the day, I bought every new sim that was released. Damn that included some dogs.
MiniD
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Originally posted by Reschke
Pretty damn hairly trying to ingress under the radar on the Kola Peninsula as well.
Yeah, I remember well how difficult it could be.
Ya could elect to fly low, and try to thread thru the mountains below radar coverage, avoiding the ZU-23's and SAMs, then attempting to pop up right before your target, using so much fuel your chances of RTBing were practically nil.
OR
Ya could elect to fly at high altitude, and try to keep total EMCON, watching your little LED threat detector as you tried threading thru SAM radar sites, Soviet E-3s and MiG patrols.
One thing about those old Microprose games like F-19, Silent Service, and Gunship was that ya hadda really plot out your attacks beforehand to survive to the next mission.
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Yaaa! A Milenko sighting...where the hell is my camera?!
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I think aircraft designations are just randomly assigned by the military. Several have been used more than once (F-4 for example). The part about confusing a Mig21 with a F-21 does'nt really occur. NATO will give an enemy aircraft it's own name, usually not a flattering one.
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Originally posted by SOB
Yaaa! A Milenko sighting...where the hell is my camera?!
HIYA SOB!
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All you young bucks prolly don't remember "F-19 Stealth Fighter"
16kb big!
(http://emulazione.multiplayer.it/stgraveyard/game_reviews/F19/F19_Add2.jpg)
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Awesome graphics!!! Where can I buy it? Will it run on a P4?
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Hehehe RIP, I see you didn't read some of our posts in this thread:o
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remember trying to lob a fuel-air bomb into the sub pens entrance in F19 ?
my favorite part!
and missile avoidance was similar to torpedo avoidance in "red storm rising "(also from Microprose!) the MFD were pretty much the same in the sub and in the plane !!
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Originally posted by SFRT - Frenchy
Hehehe RIP, I see you didn't read some of our posts in this thread:o
Frenchy, if you stopped reading the threads you might have 11,000 posts too. :)
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Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
Frenchy, if you stopped reading the threads you might have 11,000 posts too. :)
Nah, I just ignore rhetorical posts from Californians...its part of our Northwest nurturing.
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I still have my copy of F-117 and F-15E Strike Eagle. It was one of the first flight sims I owned. Lots of fun. Gunnery was too easy, but it was a hoot to be flying over the land of the ayatollahs and wasting their resources. I remember the 1979 Iran hostage crisis very well.
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Originally posted by gofaster
I remember the 1979 Iran hostage crisis very well.
Aye, so do I...thats when I fully expected the draft to kick in again (Selective Service *did* begin) and thought we'd be at war soon with Reagan coming into office. I thus began a hobby (in preparation for the draft) that I still do to this day, consistant excercise.
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Yep... The F/A-18 was previously desnigated YF-17. It lost the contract competition awarded to GD for the F-16.
The F-20 was also included in this fly off, and from most of the people that were there at the time they said it won it hands down. The F-16 was chosen for political reasons (same thing happend w/ other air frames that i dont feel like getting into)
[
QUOTE]Interesting story about them. When the IAF first brought them over and were checking the Marines out on them, they put metal shades up over them on the tarmac. As you can imagine, the skin of a plane, not to mention the rest of it, gets pretty hot in Yuma, Arizona on a 110deg day. Just by putting a shade up you can keep exposed metal from becoming untouchable (something I'm well aware of after growing up on a farm and working on the machinery). I bet the IAF guys wondered why the Marines had never thought of that. [/QUOTE]
I was stationed at Yuma for 6 years, and they JUST got cover shelters for the rest of the birds there a couple of years ago :eek:
Also, the father of a friend of mine was a Lt. Col. and flew F-18's at the time. He took my dad and I on a tour of the flightline once and took us through the HQ of the aggressor squadron. The walls were covered in Hammer and Sickles, Soviet patriotic slogans and pictures of Stalin and Lenin. The aggressor pilots all wore gold helmets with big red stars on the side.
These guys are a cool bunch. They are acutally Marine Corps Reservists who are awsome pilots. There hangor is a trip all decked up in commie probiganda. They teach american pilots how to deal with soviet era tactics and such. There official designation is VFMT-401. Nowadays they fly F-5E tiger IIs and they are IMPRESSIVE to watch and still have big red stars on there tails and wings.
just some info
(http://www.yuma.usmc.mil/tenant%20units/Images/401.gif)
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(http://members.aon.at/mwade/f202640.jpg)
F-20 was a mean machine