Re: [OT] USAF plane nomenclature

A couple of quick notes.

An aviation history enthusiast in the Air Force ( I *hope* we have some 
in the AF) probably noted that BF-111 is awfully close to to the German 
Bf- series from WW2 (the Me-109 started life as the Bf-109 until Willy 
Messerschmidt made an ego move).. Maybe.

The 11 missing numeric designations are in use by X-series aircraft. 
We're going to bump into WW2 designations this century (P-47, P-51) so 
it's a good thing the Pursuit designation is out of fashion.

Phillip Atcliffe wrote:

>On Fri, 28 Jun 2002 19:10:46 +1000 Alan and Carmel Brain 
><aebrain@webone.com.au> wrote:
>
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>>From: "Phillip Atcliffe" <Phillip.Atcliffe@uwe.ac.uk>
>>    
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>>>And then there are the "sports", generally caused by some iggorant 
>>>	 
>>>
>politician, e.g., the SR-71 which was given that designation after LBJ 
>(I think) messed up the correct version in a national broadcast and 
>no-one was game to contradict him... And it has to be said that the 
>Pentagon is not as rigorous about this as it perhaps might be. <<
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>>SR-71 - was supposed to be RS-71 till LBJ JBL'd it <
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>Even weirder, the XB-70 was supposedly retermed the RS-70, hence the 
>-71 number.
>
>Actually, the whole saga of the Blackbird designations is a mess. I've 
>seen articles claiming all sorts of weird things, like the A-11 company

>designation actually being "AI-1", the first in a new series of 
>Interceptor types as distinct from Fighters... And then there's the 
>question of why, since the USAF is so determined to call any combat 
>aircraft that it has a fighter or bomber, why the operational 
>Blackbirds weren't RF-12's, after the YF-12A designation was given to 
>the fighter version.
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>>TR-1, TR-2 and rumoured TR-3 - SR became by common usage "Strategic 
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>Recon", so they used TR for "Tactical Recon" as far as I can remember.
<
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>That's right.
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>>Minor miffs:
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>[Snip]
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>>F-117 should probably be something like A-12. But since the F-105 and 
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>F-111, (both of which carried internal bomb bays...) F is used for 
>anything which is capable of air-to-air other than self-defence, even 
>if it's not the primary mission. <
>
>That's the USAF for you. They are all fixated on the fighter jock 
>mentality there. The A-10 is the ONLY aircraft specifically designed 
>for the USAF that has an A designation. All the others were originally 
>USN designs that the AF adopted later.
>
>In the case of the F-111, there's the excuse that the B model was 
>intended to be the Fleet Air Defence aircraft for carrier groups, so it

>had a fighter-like role.
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>>The F-35 should be AF-35 or even A-something.
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>The "F-35" should be the F-24 (or -25)! Or are the Pentagon going to 
>completely jump 11 numbers in the type list for no good reason? Why the

>heck were the JSF demonstrators given X-numbers anyway? What was wrong 
>with XF-24 and XF-25?
>
>I suspect marketing stupidity here, just as F-19 was skipped because 
>Northrop wanted the Tigershark to be "different" from the "old" 
>teen-series fighters. And don't get me started on the stupidity that is

>the F-117...!
>
>Phil
>----
>(Dr) P.A. Atcliffe
>Senior Lecturer
>Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
>University of the West of England, Bristol
>Phone: +44 (0)117 344 2496
>Fax:	+44 (0)117 344 3800
>Email: Phillip.Atcliffe@uwe.ac.uk
>
>
>
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