Rockwell?

[Scorpiоn]

What is the significance of Rockwell in the B1's name?  A city, a company?  And is it B1-B or B-1B?  Or B1B?  I'm just full of questions!

[SilverFox441]

Rockwell was the manufacturer.

B-1B is the aircraft type designator:

• B=Bomber
• 1=1st serial (numbers were restarted at 1 just
  before the B-1 was designed)
• B=Second variant. A=1, B=2, C=3...

[Scorpiоn]

So, are did Rockwell and Boeing make the B-1 together?  Or did Boeing adopt the B-1 from Rockwell?

[Blade]

I beleive Boeing bought out Rockwell, and inherited everything from it.

[Iroquois]

To add to Silver Fox's code names

P and F are Figthers (ie P-51, F-14)

CF (ie CF-18, CF-105) stands for Canadian Fighter. I believe Canada is the only country to tack on it's aircraft's alliance into the model name. This was done post WW2.

There used to be a Rockwell plant in my home town but they left and a company called Meritor moved in. I believed the old Rockwell plant made power tools and meters but I'm not sure.

Also little know that Hawker (made famous for the Hurricane in WW2) built the first Harrier Jump Jet. They did this in conjunction with BAe. Also interesting is that the Avro Arrow (1959) had the flight preformance of the F-22 Raptor (2001). The F-14 is one of the US' best non-stealth fighters.

Just some useless aviation information I know of.

[Blade]

Currently P no longer stands for Fighter, it now stands for Patrol. Also the Avro Arrow could not turn at the rate a F-22 can, it can out gun and out manuvear almost any aircraft in the world.

P.S. F-14's ALL THE WAY  ;D

[Brett_Henderson]

Didn't "P" stand for "Pursuit" at one time ?

Maybe not,, just sticks in my head  

[SilverFox441]

P was Pursuit.

Canada is not the only country to add a national identifier.

Other that I have heard:

NF Norway, Fighter
EF Spanish. Fighter

They may be others...

[Professor Brensec]

The "P' did stand for Pursuit in the P40, P47, P51 etc.

Rockwell is/was a U.S. based company with International branches and manufacturing facilities for mainly heavy equipment and components of a machinery nature used in such things as road, construction and mining equipment, military vehicles,  aircraft, ships etc.
I believe they also made components for the Space Shuttle.

[RichieB16]

I believe it did.  If I remember right, that was given to the fighters because their primary planned use (at least really early on) was to chase enemy planes and shoot them down, they wern't for attack but defense (basically interceptors).  At least I read that somewhere-I could be wrong.  Eventually planes like the P-47 were build as fighter/bombers and the persuit designation no longer fit.  

[Professor Brensec]

I think the P-80 was the last fighter to bear the "P".

From then on they used the "F" for fighter, as in F84, F86 etc.  

[denishc]

 At one time Rockwell was affiliated with North American, maker of the P-51, F-86 and F-100.  This was probably Rockwells entry into the aerospace business.  Rockwell also did work on the X-15, I believe the X-24 Lifting Body and the Space Shuttle.
 In recent years, with the shrinking aerospace market, many of the smaller aerospace companies were absorbed by larger ones leaving only three major military aircraft manufactures in the U.S.:  Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman.
 The shrinking areospace market has made each military contract a "do or die" situation for these companies and they have become very competitive with each other, as seen in the recent JSF and UCAV competitions.

 As to aircraft designation, before 1947 the Air Corps was a division of the U.S. Army and under the command of the U.S. Army.  During this period fighter aircraft received the designation of "P for Pursuit".  In 1947 the Air Corps was separated from the U.S. Army and become its own identity, the U.S. Air Force.  At that time the "P for Pursuit" was changed to "F for Fightger", P-51s and P-80s became F-51s and F-80s.  Now the "P" designation is used for "Patrol", as in P-3 Orion.    

 So, why are there no B-75s or F-121s.  Well, back in the mid 1960s there was a move to simplify aircraft designations for book keeping reasons.  At that time the Air Force and Navy used different numbering systems to designate aircraft. This was considered to be confusing, wasteful and a redundant copy of paper work.  To remedy this no further "Century" aircraft numbers were issued to designate Air Force aircraft, the F-111 being the last.  Also, on the Navy side, the manufacturer's letter was dropped from their designations, thus the F8U Crusader became the F-8 Crusader and the F4H Phantom became the F-4 Phantom.  This progression continued with the F-14 through to the F-22.
 As for bombers, it was simpler to start over with B-1 after the B-70.        

[Deputy]

Rockwell Electronics. 'Nuff said.

[Whitey]

Yeah, Boeing bought out Rockwell.

[loomex]

A=attack, B=bomber, C=cargo, D=drone, E=electronic, F=fighter, G=?, H=helicopter, I=?,J=?, K=Tanker, L=ski eqiuped, M=special mission, N=research, O=observation, P=patrol, Q=drone(usually a retired a/c used for live fire), R=recon, S=anti-sub, T=trainer, U=utility, V=VIP, W=weather, X=experimental, Y=prototype, Z=?

This is from memory. I believe the Z is for static display A/C you find in a museum. The "B" was also attached to a few missles before the DoD mandated the change in the numbering system. The "S" in the SR-71 is for strategic. The F-117 is the exception to the numbering system. No real reason was ever given, but some believe it was used as a form of "mis-information" the USAF uses every now and them.