What happend to the F-19 ?

[-sam-]

Hi there,

I recently found my very old F-19 flight simulator.
I wonder.. what happend to the F-19 ?
Was it ever in service or was it just a concept plane.
I heard something about the f-19 beeing something like a dummy to hide the f-117 project.
Also on the internet there are just some rare pictures
of miniature models available.  
Anyone has more infos about that plane ?

Thanks

[Felix/FFDS]

the  " F-19"  is, according to the USAF's virtual air museum page, apparently the initial designation for the F-117.

It's curious, though, why the "Stealth Fighter" ever got an "F" designation, since it isn't a fighter.  

[Woodlouse2002]

[quote]

It's curious, though, why the "Stealth Fighter" ever got an "F" designation, since it isn't a fighter.

[-sam-]

I could imagine that they thought of using it as fighter plane.
The SR71 for example also was planned as interceptor.
The programm was stopped because it was to unflexible

I have an interresting document about the f-117.
It says that when the program was started the USA
had still the old way numbering planes like f-xxx.
That was the time the name f-117 was born.
The numbering system was changed
during the development to f-x btw. than f-xx (f-1, f-16 and so on). After that happend the f-117 should have become the f-19.
The Document asserted that the name f-117
was kept because the f-19 was the next number to come.
And everyone (journalists, conspiracy theoreticians and so on) asked or talked about the f-19. By keeping the name f-117 it was easier for the officials to deny an f-19.
But I don

[Ivan]

[quote]I could imagine that they thought of using it as fighter plane.
The SR71 for example also was planned as interceptor.
The programm was stopped because it was to unflexible

I have an interresting document about the f-117.
It says that when the program was started the USA
had still the old way numbering planes like f-xxx.
That was the time the name f-117 was born.
The numbering system was changed
during the development to f-x btw. than f-xx (f-1, f-16 and so on). After that happend the f-117 should have become the f-19.
The Document asserted that the name f-117
was kept because the f-19 was the next number to come.
And everyone (journalists, conspiracy theoreticians and so on) asked or talked about the f-19. By keeping the name f-117 it was easier for the officials to deny an f-19.
But I don

[|| Andy ||]

Amerika 'covered' ( if at all : or not) up this plane by saying that they jumped a designation for the F-20, but.. i dont see why it still isnt used..

But honestly i dont realy care what Amerika does..

[Woodlouse2002]

There was a top secret american stealth fighter that crashed somewhere quite public when under testing and within a few days articles and accurate models were being produced of it all over the world. That plane wasn't the F19 was it?

[Hagar]

Nothing the public likes more than a mystery. Attempts at secrecy by the government don't help, in fact they cause more of these cover-up stories. Denying their existence makes it even worse, causing more suspicion & so it goes on. I suspect there's a far more simple explanation for most of these conspiracy theories. I found this interesting article on the subject. http://home.att.net/~jbaugher4/f19.html
This explanation for the skipped designations seems most likely to me.

First, why F-117?

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 why no F-19?

It is now known that the designation "F-19A" was officially skipped at Northrop's request. Since the F-5G turbofan adaptation of the F-5F was basically a completely new design, the company wanted to have a new designation assigned to it. The next designation in line would be F-19, but Northrop preferred an even number because the Soviet competitors in the export fighter market of the early 1980s all used odd numbers, and Northrop wanted to stand out from these. So the official "confusion with MiG-19"-story isn't all that far from the truth, although it is certainly rather misleading. It is unlikely that anybody would ever confuse an "F-19A" with a MiG-19, especially because the latter was already obsolete. The F-20A designator was approved despite official recommendation by the USAF Standards Branch (at that time responsible for nomenclature assignments) to follow the regulations to the letter and use "F-19A" for the redesignated F-5G. Presumably this change would also make for better advertising copy--"The Northrop F-20: First of a new generation of fighters", for example.

As usual there was a precedent.

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.

[Ivan]

There was a top secret american stealth fighter that crashed somewhere quite public when under testing and within a few days articles and accurate models were being produced of it all over the world. That plane wasn't the F19 was it?

That was Have Blue 1 or 2... Closest thing to the F-117, but with even more sweepback on the wings.
The other one was buried after the tests, but it's said that neither of them was easy to fly even with computer support (thats why the wingsweep was reduced for the production ones)

[TacitBlue]

Literally buried? why? we all know about it now, it should be in a museum.

[C]

There was a top secret american stealth fighter that crashed somewhere quite public when under testing and within a few days articles and accurate models were being produced of it all over the world. That plane wasn't the F19 was it?

Mmm, accurate models produced from a crashed plane. Last time I saw a crashed military aircraft it would have been difficult to accurately model it unless i got a meccano set and threw all the bits in a pile...

[Woodlouse2002]

Mmm, accurate models produced from a crashed plane. Last time I saw a crashed military aircraft it would have been difficult to accurately model it unless i got a meccano set and threw all the bits in a pile...

Force landed.

[C]

Force landed.

Would equal a very daft (in fact stupid) pilot, unless of course you wanted the world to see the "secret" aircraft, so people would talk about it, when actually you're developing a hundred other things other than the simple hulk of metal some pilots just landed to throw people off the scent...

[Felix/FFDS]

It was a controllable meterological balloon, that's it.

[TacitBlue]

^^ with aliens inside.  ;D