Wat happen to F-13, F-19, F-23 to F-34 ?

[Michel Van]

Since the change of the numbering system in 1962,
U.S. fighters have been designated by consecutive numbers, (the F-1 Fury.)

but there some numbers are never used like:

F-13 (has USAF a problem with Bad Luck number 13 ???)
Japan never made problem about F-4 Phantom II designation (4 is in japan, the Bad Luck number)

F-19 the National Museum of the United States Air Force website label this:
"Lockheed F-19 CSIRS (see F-117)"
some claim under Old pre 1962 list F-19 is F-117, Urban legend ?

F-23 to F-34 also not used
is F-23 related to Northrop YF-23 ?
and why the Jump from F-22 to F-35 ?

of curse a lot of Conspiracy theory Fans point that numbers are used for Real Top secrets Aircraft
(see the 5 years of F-117 operate in total secret)
but that more for Conspiracy theory fans...

 

[flateric]

Never tried to go to Andreas' site http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/missing-mds.html?

is F-23 related to Northrop YF-23 ?

Michel, this is really a hit of the day! ;D

 

[Michel Van]

Ouch...

;D ;D

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Japan never made problem about F-4 Phantom II designation (4 is in japan, the Bad Luck number)

Really? That must suck. At least 13 is a rarely achieved number in day to day dynamics but four is something that comes up all the time... Japanese must hate playing doubles tennis...

You can add P-74 (F-74) from the original USAF pursuit/fighter series as this was never assigned. Some names just disappear like the very cool F-110 Spectre… a casualty of the amalgamation of the codes in 1962 (it was the USAF name for the F4H Phantom)

But F-13 would have been skipped for bad luck. Apparently the F-19 was skipped on request by Northrop for the renumbering of the F-5G as F-20 sounded better for marketing purposes, which BTW was the same reason P-74 was skipped. Of course Testor and Tom Clancy would make great marketing success out of F-19 at a later date. (Source: http://home.att.net/~jbaugher4/f19.html)

F-24 to F-34 have not been skipped. But since the JSF competitors received X codes (X-32 and X-35) they retain their original number after re-designation from experimental to fighter mission as is the US practice.

 

[Michel Van]

F-24 to F-34 have not been skipped. But since the JSF competitors received X codes (X-32 and X-35) they retain their original number after re-designation from experimental to fighter mission as is the US practice.

F-23 = YF-23 Northrop
F-32 = X-32 Boeing JSF
F-35 = X-35 Lockheed Martin JSF
that i understand
but X-33 and X-34 do not fit in there
I never heard of a F-33 Space Fighter

 

[archipeppe]

I rembember an old "Buck Danny" comics number that was referred to an XF-13.

It was an USAF version of the North American A5 Vigilante, I don't know even if Charlier & Hubinon had invented the whole story or if it was, at that time, a real interest of USAF for the Vigilante.

 

[sferrin]

http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/missing-mds.html


The jump from F-23 to F-35 was because the guy announcing the winner didn't understand designations and nobody dared correct him. Seriously. When the announcement was made that the X-35 had won some reporter asked "what will it's official designation be". You could almost hear the panic in the guy's voice when he said "uh. . .F-35?" I'm not even certain the X designators were correct. X-32 was originally assigned to JAST run by Lockheed. (You could even fly the Lockheed canard-equipped "X-32" in the game "JSF".) How it ended up being assigned to Boeing I have no idea. As orginally conceived JAST should have been in the "X" series. As a program intended for production they should have probably been called "XF-24" and "XF-25" IMO.

 

[Sundog]

I believe it's because the XF-32 and XF-35 were originally just going to be test programs, to test shaft driven lift fan versus the tip driven lift fan technology. However, the program was turned into a production design, which, I think was a mistake, which lead to an unfair competition, since the government funded part of the development of the technology. After the technology had been demonstrated, it should have been put out there for all of the companies to use to bid for the JSF. However, since they didn't, when it went from a pure demonstrator program to production program, they never changed the designations. That's why the original aircraft had an X (Experimental designation prefix) instead of a Y (Prototype designation prefix) designation.

 

[sferrin]

Right, but the production model should have had a different number.

 

[Matej]

I never heard of a F-33 Space Fighter

Probably not "F", but definitely space fighter developed in late 90s together with the Philips laboratories.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Probably not "F", but definitely space fighter ...

More like space BOMBER. The Space Maneuver Vehicle launched off the back of an X-33 derivative would be used for placing satellites in orbit, for recon missions, for deploying weapons, and satellite inspection. Unmanned, sadly.

 

[Michel Van]

I never heard of a F-33 Space Fighter

Probably not "F", but definitely space fighter developed in late 90s together with the Philips laboratories.

hi hi that good one

Orionblamblam
More like space BOMBER. The Space Maneuver Vehicle launched off the back of an X-33 derivative would be used for placing satellites in orbit, for recon missions, for deploying weapons, and satellite inspection. Unmanned, sadly.

that make sense !

 

[Just call me Ray]

There's a story that keeps popping up that the F-117 was called the F-117 because of a misprint in one of the manuals, and rather than reprint all the manuals they decided it would be cheaper to make it stick.

 

[Artie Bob]

"There's a story that keeps popping up that the F-117 was called the F-117 because of a misprint in one of the manuals, and rather than reprint all the manuals they decided it would be cheaper to make it stick." AW&ST published an item back one or two years, confirming the existence of the F-113 and "other" succeeding numbers in the sequence assigned to foreign test aircraft and protoypes. Sorry, no photos and very sketchy details. The inference was that the sequence was still continuing, so who knows? Perhaps we shall one day see a YF-120 or XF-121.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Its all well explained here:

http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/nonstandard-mds.html

 

[LowObservable]

F-13 - bad luck
F-19 - as explained by Parsch
F-24 to F-34 - What appears to have been confusion when LockMart was announced the winner of JSF, resulting in the out-of-sequence "F-35".

A word on X-32/X-35. These were never XF designations. X-32 was assigned (in sequence, after X-31) to DARPA for the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter (CALF) demonstration, and was current when Lockheed and MDC were awarded contracts in 3/93. The idea was that the winning team (there would only be one) would build two aircraft, completing one in CTOL form (X-32A) and the other as a STOVL (X-32B). However, this down-select never happened under CALF.

Under JSF, there would be two concept demonstration teams. The X-32 designation was reused for one of them, but the X-33 and X-34 designators had been assigned to NASA programs by the time JSF looked for a second designator, so that became X-35. I believe that Boeing was given X-32 on an alphabetical basis.

However, that does explain why, at one time, there was a "Lockheed X-32" design.